It took Ernest some minutes to arrive at the facts of the case, but when
he understood them he leaned against the pump, which stood near the back-
kitchen window, and mingled his tears with the cook's.
Then his blood began to boil within him. He did not see that after all
his father and mother could have done much otherwise than they actually
did. They might perhaps have been less precipitate, and tried to keep
the matter a little more quiet, but this would not have been easy, nor
would it have mended things very materially. The bitter fact remains
that if a girl does certain things she must do them at her peril, no
matter how young and pretty she is nor to what temptation she has
succumbed. This is the way of the world, and as yet there has been no
help found for it.
Ernest could only see what he gathered from the cook, namely, that his
favourite, Ellen, was being turned adrift with a matter of three pounds
in her pocket, to go she knew not where, and to do she knew not what, and
that she had said she should hang or drown herself, which the boy
implicitly believed she would.
With greater promptitude than he had shown yet, he reckoned up his money
and found he had two shillings and threepence at his command; there was
his knife which might sell for a shilling, and there was the silver watch
his Aunt Alethea had given him shortly before she died.
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