THE MAY QUEEN.
"Mother," said Frederick Stanley, "is it not wrong to treat servants unkindly?"
"What makes you ask that question?" answered his Mother. "What can have put that into your head?"
"Nothing—I don't know," replied he, looking at his sister Kate, who was sitting near him, working a pair of slippers.
Mrs. Stanley saw that there was something on their mind, so she laid down her book, and tried to draw it out. She began:
"What is the reason that your little Scottish friend Jessie has not been here lately? I thought that you, Kate, could not take a walk, with any pleasure, without her, and Fred has become quite a beau, since her arrival. I am afraid you have done or said something to offend her."
"Fred," said Kate,—who was two years younger than her brother, and much smaller, and had a great respect for him,—"Fred, do you tell Mother."
Fred gave his pantaloons a little pull, shook the hair away from his face, half laughed, and did not speak a word; but Kate, like a real little woman, could not keep the secret a moment longer. "We have had a quarrel, Mother; that's all!"
"'A quarrel! that's all!'" said her Mother. "That's a great deal too much; but what did you find to quarrel about?"