"Me took his watch," sobbed little Georgy, in a fit of remorseful generosity. "Me not want mamma to hit him like that."
"How can you for shame treat him in such a manner, ma'am?" cried Honour, indignantly, as her own passion rose; and she spoke to her mistress as she had never dared to speak before. "Poor orphan child I Nobody to protect him! How can you reconcile it to the memory of my dead master?"
Mrs. Carleton St. John stood glaring at the girl, her hand pointed imperiously, her voice low now with command. It was as if some soothing oil had been thrown on the wounds of passion.
"Tomorrow morning you quit my service, Honour Tritton? I never tolerate insolence, and I find that you have been here too long. Take that boy out of my sight."
Somehow in the fray, they had all hemmed themselves into a corner, and the broken glass was cracking under Mrs. St. John's feet. Honour picked up the watch with a jerk which bespoke the temper she was in, clasped the sobbing boy tenderly in her arms, and went upstairs with him, meeting Prance at the dining-room door, as she was gliding in.
"It's a burning shame!" broke forth Honour, sitting down by the nursery fire and dashing the coals about with the poker, while she held Benja to her with the other hand--"it's a burning shame that he should be so treated! If she does turn me away, I'll go every step of the way to Castle Wafer and tell all I know to your guardian, Benja. If I don't do it, may Heaven never prosper me!"
Poor little ill-treated child! He lay there in her lap, smarting with the pain, his trembling heart beating.
"Let the worst come to the worst, my precious lamb, it can only be for a few years," began Honour again. "I know it said in my master's will that you were to be sent early to Eton."
"What's Eton?" sobbed Benja.
"Something very good," rejoined Honour, who had no definite ideas on the subject herself. "And when you are of age, my darling, all Alnwick will be yours, and she and Master Georgy must turn out of it."