He looked for a minute at Miss Brabazon before he answered: it almost seemed to her as if he divined Mrs. Paradyne's reproachful words. She waited for an answer.
"After I had made the agreement with Dr. Brabazon to come here, I wrote to Mrs. Paradyne. She wanted, as I knew, to place her son at a first-class school, and I thought I might give him some little extra attention."
"Just so. It was very kind of you. Mrs. Paradyne has an idea that the boys are shunning him," added Miss Brabazon.
"I believe they are. But why, I cannot find out, for I don't think they have any clue to the past. I tell George Paradyne he will live it down."
"To be sure he will. There is a daughter also, I find—a teacher in a school."
For one moment Mr. Henry turned and looked sharply, questioningly, at Miss Brabazon; as if he would ask how much more Mrs. Paradyne had told her. But it was evident that he shunned the subject; and he made no comment whatever on this additional item of news. An idea flashed over Miss Brabazon that Mr. Henry was attached to this young lady; but why it did so she could not have told.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Henry."
He bowed his adieu, and Miss Brabazon went round to the house-door, and thence to the kitchen. Mrs. Butter was standing there in a fury, surrounded by coils of string and a heap of paper.
"Look here, Miss Emma," was her salutation; and she was familiar with Miss Brabazon from having formerly lived servant in the college. "If those boys don't have something done to them, it's a shocking shame. There comes a railway porter to the door five minutes ago—'A parcel for you, ma'am,' he says to me, 'fourpence to pay!' Well, I was expecting a parcel from my brother, and I paid the fourpence and took it in. 'What on earth has made Bill tie it up with all this string for, and wrap it round with all this paper?' says I as I undid it. First string, and then paper; then string, and then paper; and curious round holes bored in all of it, as if done with a big iron skewer. But it never struck me—no, Miss Emma, it never struck me; and I went on and on till I came to the last wrap, and was bending over that to see whatever it could be, done up so careful, when a live mouse jumped out in my face. I shrieked out so, that it brought the German gentleman in—he thought I was afire. Between us we caught the mouse, and there he is, in a pail o' water, which is where them boys ought to be. The depth of 'em! boring them holes to keep the animal alive, and getting a railway porter to come with it, as bold as brass!"
Emma Brabazon, staid lady of thirty though she was, stood coughing behind her handkerchief. "But how do you know it was the boys?" she asked.