She did not receive any answer.
‘Do you know if many of the boys are gone to the merry orchard?’
‘Ay.’
‘Well, you are a good lad not to be one of them.’
‘Hadn’t got any money,’ said Paul gruffly; but Mrs. King thought he said so chiefly from dislike to be praised, and that there had been some principle as well as poverty to keep him away.
‘It might be better if no one had it on a Sunday,’ she could not help sighing out as she looked anxiously along the lane ere turning in, and then said, ‘My good lad, I don’t want to get you to be telling tales, but it would set my heart at rest, and his poor brother’s up there, if you could tell me he is not gone to Briar Alley.’
Paul turned up his face from the gate upon which he was leaning his elbows, and gazed for a moment at her sad, meek, anxious face, then exclaimed, ‘I can’t think how he could!’
Poor Paul! was it not crossing him how impossible it would seem to do anything to vex one who so cared for him?
‘Then he is gone,’ she said mournfully.
‘They were all at him,’ said Paul; ‘and he said he’d never seen what it was like. Please don’t take on, Missus; he’s right kind and good-hearted, and wanted to treat me.’