"It's the inside I'm anxious about. Master Ralph is that self-willed, he won't let me see if the spelling is all right. I should like—"
"Come now, Sarah, that won't do. Neither you nor I have any business with the inside of a letter, or the outside either, for that matter, when it has once been posted. I've obliged you so far as seeing it is directed plainly, and stamped, because of it being a boy's letter. But I wouldn't go beyond that, no, not if the Queen herself was to ask me;" and the letter was dropped into the mail-bag again.
"I'm sure I'm very much obliged for what you have done," said Sarah. "It's lucky it is to the captain, who will excuse blots and bad spelling."
On her homeward way Sarah thought, "I can turn-out the boy's pockets after he's asleep. If I find the captain's letter to him, it will tell me what I want to know."
Again she was disappointed. Ralph knew the contents of that precious letter by heart, and feeling that no one could rob him of them, he had burned the letter itself to ashes. He, however, displayed Miss Mountford's note of invitation to her admiring eyes, and told her he should be all right for Christmas Day.
"And I am glad the lady has asked you, Master Ralph," said Sarah. "I have been making myself miserable about you being all by yourself here. Not but what no company is better than bad," she thought, but she kept this sentiment unspoken.
Sarah could look back on recent Christmases and lament, as she pictured the guests that her master had gathered around him then, and permitted this boy to mix with. She gave Ralph many admonitions as to his conduct, especially as to the language he should use in Miss Mountford's presence.
"I don't want you to tell me what to say," replied Ralph. "Do you think I shall talk to a lady as if she were Jem Capes? Father has taught me how to behave to ladies."
"Then don't forget, Master Ralph, that's all. Be a good boy, and a gentleman, whoever you are with, and then you won't need to be put in mind." From which warnings it will be understood that Sarah was aware how her charge varied his mode of speech to suit the company in which he found himself. If Miss Mountford could have heard her protégé in conversation with the groom, her opinion of him would have been modified.
Still, there was much that was lovable and even noble in the child, whilst his faults were inseparable from his surroundings. He copied his father's words and ways with the utmost exactitude, and John Torrance laughed as, from time to time, he noted this, but without rebuking his boy.