"He's breakin' his mother's heart fast enough, any way," said Mr. Jones. "Drinkin' and swearin' and stealin' and idlin' round, when he ought to be a help to her, poor, sick body! It isn't goin' to do him nor his mother no harm for him to be shut up for a little while where he can think over his bad ways. He wants bringin' up somewhere, and Toby knows it too."
Toby growled and wagged his tail, as if to say he agreed with Mr. Jones. The growl was for Joe, the wag for his master.
"You surely don't think he ought to be let off," said Mrs. Jones, "when he hurt Maggie that way? Why, she's going to have a black eye, sure as a gun!"
Joe walked away with Toby at his heels. Maggie's head was bound up, and her bruises washed with arnica, and both she and Bessie were petted and comforted.
As for the new doll, which Maggie had thrown down in her haste to run to her little sister's help, it was picked up by one of the gentlemen, who brought it safe and unbroken to Maggie. To be sure, Miss Bessie Margaret Marion's dress was rather soiled by the wet sand on which she had fallen; but as it was of muslin, it could easily be washed, and Mrs. Jones soon made it quite clean again.
[XIX.]
SOUL AND INSTINCT.
"PAPA," said Maggie, the next morning, as she sat on his knee at the breakfast-table, leaning her aching little head against his breast,—"papa, is there anything in the paper about our 'sault and battery?"
"About what?"