The reins were moved, and they set off at a spanking pace, and were soon
bowling along the turnpike road that made a circuit through the forest
toward Brudenell Heights.
The sun had set, a fresh breeze had sprung up, and, as they were driving
rapidly in the eye of the wind, there was scarcely opportunity for
conversation. In little more than an hour they reached a point in the
road within a few hundred yards of the weaver's hut.
"Here we are, my boy! Now, do you think you can get home without help?"
inquired Mr. Middleton, as he stopped the carriage.
"Oh, yes, sir, thank you!" replied Ishmael, as he clambered down to the
ground. He took off his hat beside the carriage, and making his best
Sabbath-school bow, said: "Good-evening, sir; good-evening, madam and miss, and thank you very
much."
"Good-evening, my little man; there get along home with you out of the
night air," said Mr. Middleton.
Mrs. Middleton and the little lady nodded and smiled their adieus.
And Ishmael struck into the narrow and half hidden footpath that led
from the highway to the hut.
The carriage started on its way.
"A rather remarkable boy, that," said Mr. Middleton, as they drove along
the forest road encircling the crest of the hills towards Brudenell
Heights, that moonlit, dewy evening; "a rather remarkable boy! He has an
uncommonly fine head! I should really like to examine it! The intellect
and moral organs seem wonderfully developed! I really should like to
examine it carefully at my leisure."
"He has a fine face, if it were not so pale and thin," said Mrs.
Middleton.
"Poor, poor fellow," said Claudia, in a tone of deep pity, "he is thin
and pale, isn't he? And Fido is so fat and sleek! I'm afraid he doesn't
get enough to eat, uncle!"
"Who, Fido?"
"No, the other one, the boy! I say I'm afraid he don't get enough to
eat. Do you think he does?"
"I--I'm afraid not, my dear!"
"Then I think it is a shame, uncle! Rich people ought not to let the
poor, who depend upon them, starve! Papa says that I am to come into my
mamma's fortune as soon as I am eighteen. When I do, nobody in this
world shall want. Everybody shall have as much as ever they can eat
three times a day. Won't that be nice?"
"Magnificent, my little princess, if you can only carry out your ideas,"
replied her uncle.
"Oh! but I will! I will, if it takes every dollar of my income! My mamma
told me that when I grew up I must be the mother of the poor! And
doesn't a mother feed her children?"
Middleton laughed.
"And as for that poor boy on the hill, he shall have tarts and cheese
cakes, and plum pudding, and roast turkey, and new books every day;
because I like him; I like him so much; I like him better than I do
anything in the world except Fido!"