WYLDER'S HAJVD.
127
"I'm going up to the Hall, and I'll tell them she's
much better, and that I've been in her room, and that,
perhaps, she may go up to see them in the morning."
"How long is all this to go on for, Master Stanley?"
"Why, d — you, Tamar, can't you listen?" he said,
clutching her 'wrist in his lavender kid grasp rather rough-
ly. "How long — a very short time, I tell you. She'll
be home immediately. I'll come to-morrow and tell
you exactly — maybe to-morrow evening — will that do?
'And should they call, you must say the same; and if Miss
Dorcas — Miss Brandon, you know — should wish to go
up to see her, tell her she's asleep. Stop that hypocriti-
cal grimacing, will you. It is no part of your duty to
tell the world what can't possibly concern them, and may
bring your young mistress to — perdition. That does
not strike me as any part of your religion."
Tamar groaned again, and she said: "I opened my Bi-
ble, Lord help me, three times to-day, Master Stanley,
and could not go on. It's no use — I can't read it."
"Time enough — I think you've read more than is
good for you. I think you are half mad, Tamar; but
think what you may, it must be done. Have not you
read of straining at gnats and swallowing camels? You
used not, I've heard, to be always so scrupulous, old
Tamar."
There was a vile sarcasm in his tone and look.
"It is not for the child I nursed to say that," said Ta-
mar.
There were scandalous stories of wicked old Tiberius —
bankrupt, dead and buried — compromising the fame of
Tamar — not always a spectacled and cadaverous student
of Holy Writ. These, indeed, were even in Stanley's
childhood, old-world, hazy traditions of the servants' hall.
But boys hear often more than is good, and more than