"I'm sure, if one doesn't want a dozen hands atween them all!" pursued the old woman, trying to hush the child; "there's Miss Lyddie now, there's no knowing where she's agone--I've not set eyes on her this half-hour!"
"Not know where she is!" said Flora, glancing round anxiously. Emmie, the youngest child but one, was quietly amusing herself in a corner, breaking off the legs of the wooden animals belonging to an ark which Mrs. Vernon had provided for her amusement. But no trace of Miss Lyddie was to be seen. Flora hurried from the room to search for the little truant.
It was not long before she found her in the dining-room, close to a small press in which various preserves and other little dainties were kept. Lyddie was several years older than the other children, and tall for her age; her lank over-grown form, untidy hair, awkward carriage and sickly face, conveying to the mind the idea that she was like some idle weed, which had sprung up uncared-for and untended, She started slightly on seeing Flora, and hastily closed the door of the press, which had stood a little ajar.
"O Lyddie!" exclaimed Flora, "it is very wrong indeed to take sweets without asking leave!"
"I didn't!" said the child, shrinking back from her touch, and eyeing her with a furtive glance.
"Look there!" cried Flora, pointing very gravely to some unmistakable crimson stains on the dress and hands of the girl. "It is still worse to tell an untruth about it."
The girl pouted, and put two fingers into her mouth.
"O Lyddie! has no one taught you who sees our actions, and--" Flora was commencing a gentle, but very serious reproof, when it was suddenly cut short by her auditor darting from the room.
"What dreadful children!" said poor Flora to herself; "they seem more unmanageable, more uncared for, both as regards their physical and moral condition, than the poorest cottager in the village! We must speak seriously to their mother about them; it is impossible to let them go on in this way."
To speak to Mrs. John Vernon was not at that moment practicable, as she had gone to sleep on the sofa, and was on no account to be disturbed. The dinner, which had been delayed for some hours for her arrival, was thus again indefinitely postponed, as both Mrs. Vernon and her daughter thought it more courteous to take their meal with their guest, instead of sharing that prepared for the children. Flora felt irritated and tired, and very little disposed to look at the bright side of affairs. The noisy voices of the children seemed never to be silent. They penetrated every part of the house; no room appeared safe from the intrusion of unwelcome little guests: for a spirit of active curiosity was a characteristic of Lyddie, and Johnny was prosecuting a search for his negro Sambo, which carried him to places where he was unlikely, as well as those where he was likely to find him.