us Author:Molesworth Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. QUEEE VISITORS. ". . . they are what their birth And breeding suffer them to be— Wild outcasts of society." Gypsies—Wordswouth. Miss Mi... more »tten, the young governess, had not yet come when the children got to the nursery, though all was in order for her—the table cleared, the three chairs set round it ready. There was nothing to do but to get out the books and slates. Duke went to the window and stood there staring out silently; Pamela, who always liked to be busy, dragged forward a chair, meaning to climb on to it so as to reach up to the high shelf where the lesson things were kept. But, as she drew out the chair, something that had been hidden from view in a corner near which stood a small side-table caught her eye. She let go the chair, stooping down toexamine this something, and in a moment a cry escaped her. " Bruwer! oh, bruvver," she exclaimed, " just see! How can it have got brokened?" and she held up the bowl—or what had been the bowl rather—out of which Toby had gobbled up his unexpected breakfast,—broken, hopelessly broken, into several pieces ! In an instant Duke was beside her, and together they set to work to examine the damage, as if, alas ! any examining could have made it better. It was far past mending, for, besides the two or three large pieces Pamela had seized, there lay on the ground a mass of smaller fragments, down to mere crumbs of china. "Toby couldn't have done it, could he?" said Pamela. " He stayed in here when us went down to prayers." " No, oh no! Toby couldn't have broken it," said Duke; " and even if he had, it would not have been his fault. He didn't put it down on the floor. It was near here he ate the bread and milk up—perhaps he rolled the bowl behind the table." " And Biddy pushed the table against it when ...« less