"We just saw it: Dr. Beresford drove us over one day -but there were no breakers, it was quite calm." "Why, I thought you were nearly as wild about it as I am. I should have been there all day: you wouldn't have caught me at your balls and tea-fights. Meg's as bad as I am; it's a thousand pities she wasn't born a boy-she's an awfully plucky little beggar. Have you seen this?" and Tony pointed with ineffable pride to the model of a small ship, covered with a glass shade, which adorned the centre of the chimney piece. "Ah, your chef d'œuvre, and finished too," said Lottie admiringly: "it's very pretty, very nice indeed. Oh, boy— what a thorough son of Neptune you are going to be." 66 Arn't I just!" cried Tony, oblivious of grammar; "but I say, Lottie, two years is a beastly long time to wait." "So it is, but you must make up your mind to wait it," said Lottie decidedly; "if we had all only two years to wait for what we wanted, it would be very agreeable indeed;" and she turned away to hide two eyes full of tears which the boy would not understand. Was she ever to rest! Was this constant militancy with her silent sorrow never to cease! "Redikilus poor folk may say what they like about equality," remarked Betsey, below stairs, to Obadiah, as after she had taken up the tea, she commenced unearthing the mighty treasures of the hamper: "it's all nonsense: there is a difference. Them two pretties has an air about them now, as they hadn't before, somehow-not as they needed improvin'," added Betsey quickly, "but it's a sort of somethin'-I can't tell what it must have comed with their bein' with them grand folks. I'd hoped as they'd have left some of their High Church notions up in that place-Cul-Culwhat is it Obadiah?" "Coolcrowther," said Obadiah. "Ay, Coolcrowther. But there's Miss Lottie a crossin' of herself before she'll take a sup o' tea, as quiet and devoutlike as ever." "It wont do no harm," remarked Obadiah peaceably. "There you are!" said Betsey testily: "I do believe as you've a leanin' towards them bishops and priests and folks as isn't becomin' in a Methodist, and I do believe as you'll turn church one of these days. Not as you'll get me to join you. I've often and often grieved over my pretties goin' to that church in Turf Street, though I can't see as how they can very well help it, considerin' Mr. Jim's the curate. Eh! what a pretty sight!" said Betsey complacently, drawing a huge ham from the hamper; "I've never seen a finer ham Obadiah since you was courtin' me down in Surrey thirty years ago. And these here chickens-I suppose as they'll be for dinner on Sunday. It aint often as Mr. James eats a bit of chicken like these 'll be when I've cooked 'em and a hare too-eh! but Miss Forryst will be pleased," and Betsey relapsed into silence, absorbed in a mental process of hare-jugging, fowl-roasting, and hamfrying. "How about the bet?" asked James Forryst, when, Tony and Meg having retired to rest, they gathered round. the fire, with the exception of Hyacinth, who had collected as many glasses as No. 3, could spare, and was busily arranging the flowers they had brought from Culcrowthie. "I suppose it amounts to this," she replied carelessly; "that I owe you a pair of gloves-Eights you take, I believe I'll get them to-morrow when I go into the town." "Thank you," said James coolly, lighting his cigarette; I am just in want of a pair, it is rather convenient." "I think my dear-" observed Miss Forryst gently as "don't you that you were rather-rather premature in your decision ?" 66 'Oh, about Mr. Harris;" said Hy with a light, low laugh; "no, sweet auntie, I cannot marry a clergyman: whenever I think of such a thing, a faint vision rises before me of tea-parties, currant-buns, Sunday-school teaching, and fat old ladies who are always taking offence. It's bad enough to be a curate, but to marry one-no thank you auntie. Who cares for the curate's sermons I should like to know, and who cares for the curate's advice except young ladies who work slippers, and old women who have their ague and rheumatics sympathized with ?" "I hope I shall get a living some day," said Jim demurely; "if not, I must resign myself I suppose to perpetual celibacy. I wonder if all the fair are of your opinion Hy." "Oh, you are an exception, dear," said she, coming behind his chair, and patting his shoulder. "And now we have something a great deal more important to talk about. We agreed to wait until Tony and Meg had departed ere we mentioned the subject. They can know to-morrow if it is necessary. Where is the card, Lottie ?" Lottie produced it from a very consumptive-looking purse, and handed it to her brother. He started as his eyes fell on the printed name. "Richard Forryst-Chiswick Hall-Surrey'-wherever did you get this?" And Lottie gave him an account of what had transpired during the journey. 66 Well, wonders never cease,” remarked James thoughtfully when she had finished: "but how did he know you ?” "That I cannot tell you. I noticed him at Newcastle, peering in at our compartment window, and just as the train started, he bounced in." "He must have been startled with your likeness to poor father," said James glancing at Lottie; "you are exceedingly like him. But now aunt Lucy, don't be too sanguine, and whatever you do, girls, don't begin building castles in the air.' The affair may all come to nothing, and most probably will so terminate; uncle Richard is not blessed with a particularly retentive memory as we know to our cost-or rather, loss-and second thoughts are sometimes best, you know. Of course the estate and money were left to him, and a man has a right to do what he will with his own, but he might have sought us up and helped us, had he chosen. At any rate this meeting is a pleasant little episode, and if uncle Dick ever condescends to set foot in No. 3, we can but hold out the right hand of fellowship to him. It won't hurt him, if it does us no good. What sort of a looking fellow is he?" "Very dark, with eyes something like papa's were, only much keener and sharper. I am afraid he thought us excessively curt." "Never mind; that will not harm his opinion of you in the least. I do believe had you known who he was, would have been curter still-eh, Lottie ?" you "I believe I should; just to have shewn him, that I was not ready to fly into his arms, merely because he was a rich relation. And he has behaved very badly, very badly indeed," said Lottie, with an emphatic indignation in her tone. 81 CHAPTER X. The trivial round, the common task KEBLE. AH! that common life with its petty vexations and its deprivations; its mending, making, dusting, and teaching. Lottie felt it irksome, and found herself not quite so much on the safe side of luxury" as she imagined. There were steel forks at breakfast, thin coffee, and short allowance of bacon and butter. There was that hideous paper with its birds of Paradise, and blue cascades, and the dreary view of Donnington commonplaceness without. There was Mrs. Jones on the opposite side of the street, half hidden behind the soiled white curtains of her "drawing-room" window, with an old opera-glass applied to her eyes, which operaglass accounted for the extraordinary second-hand bits of news, continually being brought into No. 3. Lottie, as she sat down to her work, and Meg's lessons, caught a glimpse of the objectionable glass once more. Lastly there was Mrs. Brown, the American neighbour, who, screening a desperate fit of curiosity under a guise of friendliness, invaded the front-parlour unceremoniously, in the middle of Meg's grammar lesson, and just as Hyacinth seated herself at the table with a sigh, to resume her labours for the Berlin Wool Repository. "So you've got back," said the lady taking a chair: G |