"Poor boy!" said she, "what an affliction! He ought to be put into an asylum."
"Please, your ladyship, his mother won't part with him," said Clara; "and he never does no harm, not if you're kind to him. There, there, boy, don't cry. I've got some butter-milk for you in t' dairy."
He began to smile through his tears, which he wiped away on her apron. Claud thought it the oddest group he had ever seen. The sight of the great fellow prone on the ground, meekly taking a beating from a girl half his size, was a mixture of the pathetic and the absurd. It half touched, half disgusted him. Suddenly a light step on the wooden stair made him turn.
Wynifred stood in the doorway.
"Oh,—Mr. Cranmer," she said, faltering somewhat at the presence of three strangers. "I beg your pardon, I thought you were alone. My brother would like to see you."
"I'll come at once, but first of all you must let me introduce you to my sister."
CHAPTER XIV.
"Till the lost sense of life returned again,
Not as delight, but as relief from pain."
The Falcon of Sir Federigo.