A VICTIM.
"So this is what you call Eagle's Nest?" cried the new-comer. "What a rum place!"
"It's a fortress," observed Madge with considerable dignity, for she did not quite like the want of respect with which he was criticising their great achievement. "It is only accessible by a rope-ladder and one other—" She stopped suddenly, thinking that after all it might not be wise to confide all their secrets to a stranger until he proved himself worthy of confidence.
"Oh, you needn't trouble to tell me," replied the boy; "I shall find it out quickly enough. I find out everything. I found you out playing up in this tree, though you couldn't see me."
"We did not know there were any children on the other side of the wall, so we didn't look particularly," explained Madge. "We thought an old lady lived—"
"Old Mother Howard you mean?" interrupted the boy. "Yes, she lives there right enough. And a rum old woman she is too!"
"Is she your mother, then?" asked John, rather puzzled by this speech.
"Rather not! I should jolly well like to see her dare to be my mother!" said the boy indignantly. "I'm an orphan, and she says she is some relation and has a right to bring me up. But I'll tell you something,"—he lowered his voice mysteriously, and the others crept a little nearer to him,—"it's my belief she is only trying to get all my money!"
"How dreadful!" exclaimed Madge. "I didn't know that people really did that sort of thing nowadays."
"Oh, don't they just!" said the boy, seemingly delighted by the impression his words had produced. "I'll just tell you how she has treated me. My father was a very rich man and I am his only child, so of course I ought to be rich, oughtn't I? Well, I hardly ever have any pocket-money at all!"