een we figh

problems gra

smiles and w

e do in a

teen up t

delicate, and so nobody felt anxious about her until it was too late for anxiety to be of any use. She glided out of life as gracefully as she had glided through it, trusting that the sternness of h

usin Elisabeth. The former bore her sorrow better, on the whole, than did the latter, because she ha

stopher's clumsy though well-meant attempts to divert her. "I shall never be interest

thing," said Chr

and the view isn't a bit what it used to be when she was here. All the ordinar

little

good of their being so beautiful and filling the sky with red and gold, if she isn't here to see them? And what is the good of

he wrong way. "I say, I wish you wouldn't fret so; it's more than I can stand to see

a great, stupid boy like you make up to me for having lost her?" mo

as she was, for nobody could be f

loved me, but because I loved her; and I shall never

d Christopher, who even then knew El

d I should hate

tation with many friends, she decided to send Elisabeth to school, for it was plain that she was losing her vitality through lack of an interest in life; and school-whatever it may or may not supply-invariably affords an un

measure what her school-days did for her; and it would be equally futile to endeavour to convey to

art-searchings and soul-awakenings which go to make up the feminine life from twelve to eighteen, and which are very much the same in their essence, if not in their form, as those which go to make up the feminine life from eighteen to eighty. In addition to these, the walls enclosed two lawns and an archery-ground, a field and a pond overgrown with water-lilies, a high mound covered with grass and trees, and a kitchen-garden filled with all manner of herbs and pleasant fruits-in short, it was a wonderful and

t for life and its lessons than any ready-made cloak of superficial knowledge, which covers all individualities and fits none. There was no cramming or forcing at Fox How; the object of the school was not to teach girls how to be scholars, but rather how to be themselves-that is to say, the best selves which they were capable o

there is in a drop of rain-water, or in what year Hannibal crossed the Alps? But it will matter to her infinitely, for the remainder of her mortal existence, whether she is one of those graceful, sympathetic beings, who

g-place from a cemetery into a garden. Elisabeth Farringdon could not be happy-could not exist, in fact-without some absorbing affection and interest in life. There are certain women to whom "the trivial round" and "the common task" are all-sufficing who ask nothing more of life than that they shall always have a dinner to order or a drawing-room to dust, and to whom the delinquencies of the cook supply a drama of never-failing attraction and a subj

less, perhaps, by the Pope himself), as she represented to their girlish minds the embodiment of all that was right, as well as of all that was mighty-and represented it so perfectly that through all their lives her pupils never dissociated herself from the righteousness which she taught and upheld

placidity, which was very restful to Elisabeth's volatile spirit; and the latter consequently greeted her with that passionate and thrilling friendship which is so satisfying to the immature female soul, but which is never again experienced by the woman who has once been taught by a man the nature of real love. Felicia was mu

one day of their last term at Fox How, as the two were sitting in the arbo

enjoying oneself, and I don't beli

dly people ought to be clearly marked. I think that dancing is a regular worldly amusemen

s," Elisabeth persisted. "And He wo

ght, and it doesn't matter whe

wfully. We can't really be

unless we are good; and if we are good we shall 'l

fields, and the towns and the cities, and the prim old people and the dear little children. I love the places-the old places because I have kno

like the people that I like; but the oth

really are made of inside. Outsides may seem dull; but insides are always engrossing. That's why I always

people because you

ng for a person that I had

at a strange idea! It seems to me that you think too

out principles; feelings are the only things th

s' silence Elisabe

ith your life when you le

get married. Most girls do. And I hope it will b

married," said Elisabeth slow

r of you!

want to say, and that I must say; and I can only say it by means of pictures. It would be dreadful to di

found one man to whom you would be everything, an

e, to make me paint better pictures. I read in a book the other day that you must fall in love before you can become a true artist;

in the world to whom you can tell all your thoughts, a

l all your thoughts to the whole world, and that the world will

lean on him and learn from him in everything; and I should like to feel that whatever goodness or clev

o good and clever that I was helping the man to

e particular man," said Felicia; "and to feel that he was a fairy prince

battle of life; but that my love would comfort and cheer him after all the tiresome wars that he'd gone through. And as fo

k alike about things,

t matter, as long as we agree

into a full-blown young lady, he straightway fell in love with her. He was, however, sensible enough not to mention the circumstance, even to Elisabeth herself, as he realized, as well as anybody, that the nephew of Richard Smallwood would not be considered a fitting mate for a daughter of the house of Farringdon; but the fact that he did not mention the

h among them once more; she was a girl with a strong personality; and people with

again," remarked Mrs. Bateson to Mrs. Hankey; "and it

e removed by death or by marriage; and which'll be the best for her-poor young lady!-the Lord must d

s. Bateson, who, in common with the rest of her class, was consum

is going to die, having done a good bit of sick-nursing in my time afore I married Hankey; but as to foretelling how t

ady-cow in their lifetime-have left wills as have sent all their relations to the right-about, ready to bite one another's noses off. Bateson often says to me, 'Kezia,' he says, 'call no man honest till his will's

ies," said Mrs. Hankey; "and I've lived long enough

'd have thought she'd have left her a trifle; but not she! All she had went to her sister, Miss Maria, who'd got quite enou

death for showing up w

him, and I'm the last to defend that; and then he didn't want to marry his cousin, Miss Maria, for which I shouldn't blame him so much; if a man can't choose his own wife and his own newspaper, what can he

all round. For my part, I doubt if Miss Farringdon will leave her fortune to Miss Elisabeth, and her only a cousin's child; for when all is said and done, co

l marry, and have a husband to work for h

to them that trust in them; besides, I doubt if Miss Elisabeth is handsome enou

e-I don't pretend as she is; but she has a wonderful way of dressing herself, and look

and putting on of apparel; and when all's said and done it don't go as far as a good

e ain't her like in all Mers

of it, it may keep her from ever having one. I don't hold with cleverness in a woman myself; it has always ended

round she walks on, and she couldn't find a better man if s

s kittens-you should take 'em straight from their mothers, or else not take 'em at all; for, if you

n't deny that. But he's wonderful fond of her, Mr. Christopher is; and there's nothing like love for smoothing things over when the ov

know much about it, since Hankey would always rather have had my sister Sarah than me, and only put up with me when she gave him the pass-by, being set o

hing else will; except, of course, the grace of God," added Mrs. Bateson piously, "though

isn't a regular Farringdon, as you may say-not the real daughter of the works; and so she shouldn't take too much upon herself, expecting dukes and ironmasters and the like to come begging to her on their b

should always have been expecting to see its parents' faults coming out

lesh and blood may take after th

but, as the Scripture says, it is our

hem enough; I don't fancy as you'd ever feel the same pleasure in whipping 'em as you do in

he house, I'm thankful to say," said Mrs. B

Peter the very moral of his father; as like as two peas they are. And when you find one p

mpathetic. "That's bad

, when he does, doing it at the wrong time; well, Peter is just such another. Only the other day he was travelling by rail, and

they

fell so sound asleep that he never woke at the station, but was put away with the carriage into a siding. Fast asle

I never took one on 'em. The Lord giveth His beloved sleep, and His givings are enough for

pens to come by, and sees him, and jumps to the conclusion that there's been a murder in the train, and that our Peter is the corpse. So off he goes t

pened wide in amazement and int

, and the police sends for the crowner, so as everything shall be decent and in order; and they walks in a solemn proces

l of such a thing

eys which always take such a long time to open a door which you

f course she knew them

Mrs. Hankey continued, with the maternal regret of a mother whose son has been within an inch of fame, and missed it; "and just pictu

as you would have been yourself, Mrs. Hankey, i

-master and crowner are but mortal, like the rest of us. I assure you, w

eter in the midst of

ntlemen for not being a murdered corpse. But as I says to him afterward, he'd no one but himself to blame; first for being so troublesome as to have the toothache, and the

me I stand up for 'em both, and I wish Miss Elisabeth had got one of the one and half a dozen of

or else married to a handsomer woman, as the case may be, and both ways out of her reach. But I doubt it. She was

quired Mrs. Bateson, who was a more te

ng I asked our Peter how his tooth was, and he says, 'No better, mother; it was so bad in the night that I fairly wished I was dead.' 'Don't go wishing that,' says I; 'for if you

h good," Mrs. Bateson remarked sap