10 
OUR HOME BIRDS. 
yet, though Clara had asked in surprise, “ Did he 
not go to town with papa ?” 
This was not a very common event, but, as it some- 
times happened, and as Malcolm had not been visible 
since breakfast-time, his sisters supposed that an extra 
holiday had been granted. 
“ No,” replied their governess ; “ your papa decided 
not to allow any more holidays at present ; and I am 
sure that he would not change his mind without telling 
me of it. I will call to Malcolm from the veranda ; 
perhaps he did not hear the school-bell.” 
But Miss Harson called in vain ; no Malcolm re- 
sponded, and breathing for a few moments the sharp 
spring air, she returned to the schoolroom in a some- 
what troubled frame of mind. She rather feared that 
something serious had happened to the truant ; for, as 
Kitty was fond of saying, “ It was just a mercy and 
a miracle that he didn’t kill himself twenty times a 
day;” and with recollections of having lately seen 
him at work on what looked like a very large kite, 
but between which and herself he immediately inter- 
posed the door of the tool-house, Miss Harson be- 
gan to fear that this work of art had become en- 
tangled in some very high tree, and that Malcolm 
was perhaps at this very moment lying helpless with 
a broken limb from his efforts to disentangle it. 
There was just wind enough to make it a parti c- 
