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Book, page 41 / 182 comes out of the rates, out of my pocket, and the like of me, as well as my Lady's and all the rich. Well, whatever they might like to do, it would not be serving us fairly to take more than was a bare necessity from us, to send your Master Paul and the like of him to a fine school. 'Tis for them to be just, and other folk to be generous with what's their own.' 'Mother talks as if she was a guardian herself!' said Alfred in his funny way. 'Ah, the collector's going his rounds,' responded Harold; and Mrs. King laughed good-humouredly, always glad to see her sick boy able to enjoy himself; but she sighed, saying, 'Ay, and ill can I spare it, though thanks be to God that I've been as yet of them that pay, and not of them that receive.' 'Go on the parish! Mother, what are you thinking of?' cried both sons indignantly. Poor Mrs. King was thinking of the long winter, and the heavy doctor's bill, and feeling that, after all, suffering and humbling might not be so very far off; but she was too cheerful and full of trust to dwell on the thought, so she smiled and said, 'I only said I was thankful, boys, for the mercy that has kept us up. Go on now, Harold; what about the boy?' 'Why, I don't know that he'd have gone if they had paid his expenses ever so much,' said Harold, 'for he's got a great spirit of his own, and wouldn't be beholden to any one, he said, now he could keep himself--he'd had quite enough of the parish and its keep; so he said he'd go on the tramp till he got work; and they let him out of the Union with just the clothes to his back, and a shilling in his pocket. 'Twas the first time he had ever been let out of bounds since he was picked up under the tree; and he said no one ever would guess the pleasure it was to have nobody to order him here and there, and no bounds round him; and he quite hated the notion of getting inside walls again, as if it was a prison.' 'Oh, I know! I can fancy that!' cried Alfred, raising himself and panting; 'and where did he go first?'
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