In the parlour at home, when Captain Copp entered it, sat his wife at work, a faded lady with a thin and fair face. Taking out the newspaper he had brought, he began to open it.
"Did you see the justice, Sam?" asked his wife in her gentle, loving tones.
"No, he was out. I only saw Cyril. There'll be a fine row when he comes home. Mary Anne has run away."
Mrs. Copp dropped her work. "Run away! oh, Sam! Run away from where?"
"From where?--why, from school," said the choleric captain, who was just as hot as his wife was calm. "She came bursting in upon them this morning at breakfast, having run home all the eight miles. And she says she won't go back."
Mrs. Samuel Copp, who had never in her life presumed to take a walk without express permission given for it, lifted her hands in dismay. "I feared she would never stay at school; I feared she would not."
"Old Connaught is downstairs today, Amy," observed the captain to her after a long interval of silence, as he turned his paper.
"I am glad of that. He suffers sadly, poor man."
"Well, he's getting old, you see; and he's one that has coddled himself all his life, which doesn't answer. I say! who's this?"
A vision of something bright had flashed in at the little garden gate, on its way to the door. Mrs. Copp started up, saying that it was Mary Anne Thornycroft.