“Just like it,” said Theo, sadly.
“I am glad he has got papa to ride with him to Westerham,” resumed Miss Hetty, “and that he bought Farmer Briggs's horse. I don't like his going to those Castlewood people. I am sure that Madame Bernstein is a wicked old woman. I expected to see her ride away on her crooked stick.”
“Hush, Hetty!”
“Do you think she would float if they tried her in the pond, as poor old mother Hely did at Elmhurst? The other old woman seemed fond of him—I mean the one with the fair tour. She looked very melancholy when she went away; but Madame Bernstein whisked her off with her crutch, and she was obliged to go. I don't care, Theo. I know she is a wicked woman. You think everybody good, you do, because you never do anything wrong yourself.”
“My Theo is a good girl,” says the mother, looking fondly at both her daughters.
“Then why do we call her a miserable sinner?”
“We are all so, my love,” said mamma.
“What, papa too? You know you don't think so,” cries Miss Hester. And to allow this was almost more than Mrs. Lambert could afford.
“What was that you told John to give to Mr. Warrington's black man?”
Mamma owned, with some shamefacedness, it was a bottle of her cordial water and a cake which she had bid Betty make. “I feel quite like a mother to him, my dears, I can't help owning it,—and you know both our boys still like one of our cakes to take to school or college with them.”