Sincere and strong as was the pity felt by the Frankses for the sufferings of Nancy, a letter, which came by the post a few minutes after Ned's return from his visit to the hospital, diverted their attention to a subject of still closer interest to themselves.

"Why, Ned, here's a letter to you from our Norah!" cried Persis to her husband, who, wearied with his long, early walk, was snatching a hasty breakfast.

"That will be something pleasant; Norah's letters are always pleasant," said Ned Franks, as he broke open the envelope with the help of his hook. "It's come to cheer us a bit, for I don't feel up to much this morning."

"You're not looking well, Ned," said the wife, glancing anxiously at his pale and haggard face. "That plunge into the mill-stream yesterday to save poor drowning Nancy has, I fear, given you a chill, and all your extra work to repair the almshouses after school-hours are over is too much for your strength."

"Yes, if one is to be kept awake half the night with a squalling baby," added Franks. "Our little man seemed determined that we should have enough of his music. I suppose that one will get used to it some time, just as one gets used at sea to the noise of the winds and the waves. Why, there he's at it again!"

The baby, which Persis held in her arms, began crying loudly, as he had been doing at intervals all the night through.

"I'm afraid that the darling has something the matter with him," said Persis, rocking the child gently to and fro to hush his cries.

"Nothing the matter with his lungs, anyhow," observed the sailor, who, though fondly loving his boy, had become somewhat weary of his roaring, and who had awoke with a headache,—a bad preparation for playing school-master to a swarm of noisy young rustics. "But let's see what Norah has to say for herself; dear girl, her letters are always like sunshine!" and the sailor began reading to himself the note from his young orphan niece.

"I fear there is not much sunshine in that letter," thought Persis, as she saw a cloud gathering on her husband's brow, usually so open and clear.

"I don't know what to make of this!" exclaimed Ned, in a tone of irritation, starting up from the table on which lay his unfinished breakfast. "Just listen to this, Persis. Oh, can't you stop the child's crying for a minute? It's enough to drive a fellow distracted!" and the sailor read aloud the letter from Norah, with the accompaniment of little Ned's squalling.

"Dear Uncle,—I am so grieved, but mistress has given me warning, and I'm to go to-morrow. I hope you won't be very angry, after all you've taught me, and all my resolutions. I can't stop in London just now, as I would not know where to go to; so I'm coming down to you by the train that arrives at half-past three. I hope that you won't mind; that it won't put auntie out much. My love to her and the baby. Your sorrowful niece,
"Norah Peele."

"When we thought her so comfortably settled in a good situation, doing so well," muttered Franks. "What can Mrs. Lowndes mean by cutting the poor lass adrift at a day's notice!"

"Norah must have got into some scrape," observed Persis.

"Ay, that's plain as a flag-staff. She might have given us a notion of what the scrape is, instead of writing about my teaching and her own resolutions, which we knew all about before. But poor Bessy's motherless girl must always find a home under our roof."

"Oh, yes," said Persis, cheerfully. "While you are busy with the boys, I'll see to clearing out the little room, and having all right and tight for our Norah. I think that she is as dear to me as to you, and that is saying a good deal."

"I loved the lass from the first day I saw her, and I thought there was the making of a very good girl in her, too, only she and her brother had been brought up so badly, scarce knowing a lie from the truth. But poor Bessy,—she's gone, and it's not for her brother to be diving down to bring up her failings to the light. She loved her children, anyhow, and couldn't teach them what she didn't know clearly herself. But who's to meet Norah at the station?" added Ned Franks, abruptly. "You can't go because of baby, and I can't go because of the boys."

"I am afraid that Norah must find her way home by herself," observed Persis, "unless the miller is going to the town. I'll walk over to the dell and ask him. But Norah knows the road so well that her coming alone matters less."

"It matters a great deal," cried Franks, with impatience. "Here the lass is returning with a wet sail and a heavy heart, I warrant ye, and she finds no one to take her by the hand and welcome her to port, or to carry her bundle for her. I'd not have minded it if she'd been coming with colors flying to pay us a visit. Why on earth should she choose an hour when she knows I'm always in the school-room?"

Persis did not know how to answer the question, and had no time to do so had she known, for the sound of young voices, and the trampling of heavy boots in the adjoining room, told that the boys were beginning to assemble. Never had Franks been less inclined to begin his daily labor; never had he met his scholars with less of kindly good-humor.

For Ned was no model of perfection. He was naturally of a hot and hasty spirit; and though, from Christian principle, he usually held his temper under such command that he had the reputation of possessing a good one, it had cost him many a struggle to make it obey the rein. On this particular morning, with an aching head, weary frame, and worried mind, he felt irritable and impatient. He was angry with the dull lad who could not remember that seven times eight is not seventy-eight; and when Bill Doyle, repeating his natural-history lesson, said that horses ran wild on the staircase in Russia, instead of the steppes, Ned, who at another time might have smiled at the blunder, which was probably made half in fun, muttered something about "blockhead," and sent the boy to the bottom of the class.

Bill, the son of Sir Lacy Barton's groom, being a sharp, pert little fellow, was not disposed to take his punishment quietly, or to be called blockhead on any subject connected with horses. He whispered to the boy who sat next him, "He don't know nothing about horses hisself."

"What's that?" exclaimed Ned Franks, whose sharp ear had caught the whisper.

"Father says sailors have never no notion of riding," said the saucy little urchin, "and when they mounts a horse, are as likely to get up with their face to the tail as the head." At which observation a little titter ran round the school.

It has been remarked that few things nettle a man so much as to doubt his skill in riding; and Ned, who was always jealous for the honor of his old profession, was in no humor to take as a jest the slight thus cast on the whole of the navy.

"Then you may tell your father, when you go home," he said, angrily, "that there are no better horsemen than some of our blue-jackets; and as for riding,—when we were lying off Alexandria, every day that we could get leave ashore, I and my messmates mounted and galloped at a pace that would have made your jockeys stare."

As the word of the one-armed school-master was always implicitly believed, Ned could see that he had raised himself not a little in the eyes of his pupils, especially those of Bill Doyle, by the accomplishment of horsemanship to which he had thus laid claim. But Ned had hardly spoken the hasty sentence, when he was angry with himself for having been betrayed by foolish pride into uttering it. He felt that for once he had been guilty both of exaggeration, and of (without actually speaking untruth) misleading the boys as to his meaning.

Any one of a soul less transparently candid than that of Ned Franks might have thought it weak scrupulosity to let the mind dwell for a moment on such a seeming trifle as this. There is a marvellous difference between the consciences of men. Some have become hard as the horny hoof of an ass; little short of a bullet (by which figure I would represent some open act of wickedness) can make them feel pain at all. Other consciences are tender and sensitive as the apple of the human eye, and what to many would seem an almost invisible speck of sin greatly disturbs and troubles them. This is one of the reasons why holiness and humility are so often found together; while the hardened offender, whose conscience is seared, seems almost past feeling remorse. Franks knew that he had spoken very idle words, and though he was inclined, as most people are, to make excuses for himself, his honest soul could not rest at ease until he had openly repaired his error as well as he could.

When lessons were over, and the boys were about to disperse, Ned stopped their going out of the school-room by a gesture of his hand. He stood up with his honest face a good deal more flushed than usual, for the acknowledgment which he was forcing himself to make was humiliating and painful.

"Boys," said he, in that clear voice which always commanded attention, "there's something which I want to say to you before you go home. There's nothing that I have more warned you against than the iceberg of falsehood. A man who habitually lies will, we know from the Word of God, be shut out from heaven. Now, an iceberg is a thing clear enough to be seen, and, unless he come across it at night, one might say that a pilot had no excuse for running a vessel upon one; but there's a part of the mass which one can't see,—that's the part hidden beneath the green waves, and as that may stretch out much wider than the white peak glistening above, it is clear that a ship might strike on the sunken ice while seeming to give a wide berth to the berg. Now, it's just the same with falsehood. There's an upper part, easily seen, and I hope that we all try to steer clear of it; that no boy here is so mean and base as to tell a downright lie. Every boy here knows that lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. But not all are on their guard against the sunken ice stretching below. We strike on it when we exaggerate, or when in any way we deceive, though not a word may be spoken, or what is spoken may be literal truth. My own keel grated against the sunken ice to-day." Ned felt a good deal embarrassed as he went on, all the more so from the profound silence of the listening boys. "I said that there were no better riders than some of our own blue-jackets. Now, that may be true, or it may not, but I certainly did not speak from my knowledge, and I'm afraid that I ran foul of exaggeration. And I said that when our ship was lying off Alexandria, we tars rode about on shore as often as we'd a chance,—and that was true enough, though the chance came but seldom; but I suppose that you fancied, from what I said, that we galloped about upon horses?" There was a general murmur of assent. "Now, I never mounted a horse in my life; the beasts which we rode were donkeys." There was a laugh from some of the boys, almost instantly suppressed, however, for Ned Franks looked unusually grave. "Now, my lads, I've thought it best to say all this to you openly, both for my own sake and for yours. I want you to feel how hard it is to keep off altogether from that same smooth, slippery ice of deceit,—to know how treacherously it lies under the surface; and I want you to resolve, if ever you find yourselves touching it, be it ever so slightly, to sheer off at once, like honest Christians, and let no temptation draw you from the straight course of perfect truth."

The school-master's effort was over; painful as it had been, Ned Franks was glad that he had made it. His frank confession of so small a deviation from that straight course, had made a deeper impression on the minds of his boys than hours of lecturing on the perils of falsehood would have done.

"If our master said one thing, and half the village said another, I'd take Ned Franks's word against all the rest," was the observation of one of the lads as he left the school-house.

"I never knew any one so partic'lar about truth," said Bill Doyle. "Franks has such a sharp eye for the least bit of deceit, that I guess he'd catch sight of that there slippery ice that he talked of, if it be'd fifty feet down under the waves!"