His ear was, however, soon caught by his sister's scornful exclamation, "Tea indeed! You don't mean to say that Mrs. Martin gives four shillings a pound for this powdery trash!"
"Bessy," said the sailor, looking up with a smile, "if the lady kindly sends you a present, don't you take it for better or worse?"
Again Norah looked at her uncle with that perplexed inquiring gaze, and seemed about to speak.
But her mother gave her a nudge, with a whisper, "Say nothing, he takes things so oddly."
Neither the nudge nor the words escaped the quick perception of Ned.
"Sunken rocks!" thought he. "I must sound that poor simple child as to how she came by that tea, if I chance to catch her alone."
Dan Peele soon came home from the fields, and his sharp cunning features were lighted up with such honest joy at sight of his sister, that Ned Franks said to himself, "There's a warm corner in the heart of that boy, I've judged the poor fellow hardly."
"I'm always so glad when you come home, Norah," cried Dan, almost dancing with glee, making the party laugh by adding, "then mother gives us such a thundering big pudding, and puts on the jam so thick."
Norah's presence indeed added not a little to the cheerfulness of the little circle at the family meal. She laughed and chatted gaily, and told many a little incident of her life with Mrs. Martin.
"Did I ever tell you, mother, of my first trying to read aloud to my mistress? The dear teacher at our school used to say that I read well—but wasn't I a bit frightened at the notion of having to read aloud in a drawing-room! I could hardly get up my courage when the bell rang, and I had to go up on purpose to read. There was the old lady in her big arm-chair, and the lamp with its shade on the table."