Of course it came by degrees, and at first I was clumsy and slow, and had to spend hours with my thimble on my finger when I was longing to be practising my beloved music; but after awhile I succeeded better, and was surprised at my own industry and inventive genius, and still more surprised to find I really enjoyed the turning of a dress, or the making of a garment.

"Why do you pity us?" I asked, threading another needle with crape-cotton, and wishing Cuddie were not so dexterous in making rents.

"Because you are not going to town-not going into society, not going to be properly dressed, or to ride in Rottenrow, or to drive in the parks, or to be admired; because you are going to stay here, shut up with the dear, prim old Holly, learning lessons, and keeping to rules from day to day. However, your turn will come, I suppose.”

"Not mine, I think, Nora!"

"Dear me, no!" I never thought of it; but I dare say you will never be properly introduced."

"Not in the way to which you allude, certainly; but I mean to introduce myself presently, after my own

fashion."

"Good gracious, Margaret! what can you mean? Do you mean to come out here in Cotswoldbury? Sibyl will never let you!"

"No! I did not think of 'coming out' at all, as you understand it. Nora, you must see my life is going to be a very different one from yours: you are going into 'society' it is your due, I suppose; you will be admired and courted, and, I dare say, loved; you will marry happily, I hope, and you will be rich and gay, and you will never know a care or a want; comforts and luxuries will alike be showered upon you;-your life will be one cloudless summer-day!"

"I hope it will; though something tells me I shall have my trials, like others: but do you not envy me, Margaret?" "No; and I really hope all your expectations will be fulfilled. How much you will have to tell me when you

come back, Nora! I shall count upon quite a charming story when you return."

I

"I have determined to come back engaged," said Nora, decidedly; "and I shall have to tell you all about that. am not going to be ridiculous, like Sibyl. There she was the belle of the season, and she danced, and dined, and rode, and picniced, and sang, and looked divine; and yet, as Tom says, all her suitors 'hang fire.' Elegant, isn't it? but still expressive."

"Has she had many lovers ?"

"Well, she had had about a score of beaux; and once there was a sort of engagement, and I think it would have come to something, for the young man was very much in love. But one afternoon he came in unexpectedly, when she thought he was over the hills and far away,-and—what— do-you-think-he found her doing?"

"I cannot guess; not making pies, I suppose, or cleaning the kitchen-grate, or-?"

Or being amiable? No, nothing so feminine as pastrymaking, or grate-cleaning. Charley Duchesne would have got over the flour-dredger and the rolling-pin; even the black-lead brushes would not have disgusted him so as to alienate his affections. Being a man of tolerable sense I am not sure that he would have cared at all. Margaret, look incredulous if you will, but I tell you the sober truth,—he surprised her in the act of killing the cat !"

"Do you mean it, Nora ?"

"I do, indeed.

Ask Fanny and Bella-ask Holly; they know about it: indeed, the poor animal was Bella's favourite, and regarded as her property. It was only last spring it happened, rather more than a year ago.”

"What had poor pussy done?"

"She had killed and eaten Sibyl's bird, a piping bullfinch, that she made a great fuss about. It was Sibyl's fault: she left the cage where the cat could reach it, and poor Bully and naughty Pussy were accidentally shut up together. One cannot blame a cat for making a meal of a bird any more than we can blame each other for eating lamb and chicken.

It is a cat's nature to prey on mice and feathered things, and, as she caught and devoured birds in the garden and shrubbery, without being blamed or punished, how could she know-poor unreasoning quadruped!-that birds in cages were forbidden fruit? Sibyl came back from the promenade and went straight to her room. Puss, conscience-stricken, I suppose, when the deed was done, rushed out as soon as the door was opened, and there, upon the floor, lay the battered cage-the bullfinch had been dragged between the barsand there lay feathers sprinkled with blood, and there lay poor Bully's beak! Sibyl vowed vengeance on the cat, but for nearly a week she was not to be found. Bella hid her somewhere, probably, till Sibyl's fury should have subsided. one day Puss came back, evidently forgetting all about her misdeeds; she came in purring, and rubbing, and arching her back, and Sibyl quietly took her up and proceeded to put her threat in execution."

But

"How did she do it? I should not know how to kill a cat if I wished to take her life. Besides, they are so hard to kill with their nine lives."

"Sib went down into the stable-yard, where there is a large, deep tank kept filled with water. She put the poor beast into the water, and held her down by force of arm till she was dead. Of course, she was bitten and scratched finely; but she did not seem to feel it: she stood exulting in her revenge, her cheeks flaming and her eyes flashing 'like a beautiful fiend,' Charlie Duchesne said, for he came in just as the work of death was accomplished, and Sibyl was lifting the lifeless carcase from the water."

"Was she not vexed at his appearance?"

"I scarcely know, but this I do know-he was horrified ; all his love seemed to turn to loathing, and he said, 'A girl who could deliberately, with her own hands, drown a cat for vengeance, would be very likely to commit a murder by-andby.' I think he was right."

"So do I!" And, remembering how Sibyl hated me, I shuddered and felt afraid. I was glad to think she was going away in a day or two.

For three or four months-for

they spoke of going to Brighton after the London season— I should be free from a presence that I began to fear as well as to avoid.

CHAPTER XXI.

LOST IN THE WOODS.

BESIDES Nora, I had now another unfailing friend at Crofton Lawn. I do not speak of Miss Hollingsworth who was ever my friend, though I sometimes repelled her with my proud, wilful ways and hasty speeches, but of Gussie, who, from being my torment, became my chief companion and staunch ally. She worked hard herself at her music, even condescending to practise scales and exercises vigorously, because I assured her they were essential to a free and brilliant execution; but her great delight was to throw herself on the hearth, and, with her hands clasped above her head, lie listening to my performance, whatever it might be. And as I never would play for her till all her lessons were properly prepared, I had now very little trouble with any of her studies.

After a while the habit of resistance seemed to die out, and she came as docilely to her school-room duties as the strictest disciplinarian could have desired; she began to take a real interest, first in one branch of study, then in another, till I was really surprised at her swiftness of comprehension, and at the rapidity with which she made certain kinds of knowledge all her own. As for nurse and Rebecca, they could not understand it at all; I must have bewitched the child, they said, since never before had she been amenable to authority of any kind. I had only to speak and to be obeyed, whereas in former times prayers and commands, reproofs, and cajoleries were alike ineffectual. So by degrees it came to be understood that Miss Gussie, having learnt to behave herself, as nurse said, like a Christian child, was free of the nursery; while Miss Hollingsworth signified her willingness to accept Gussie as her pupil, whenever it might be expedient. But I was not going to give up my pupil,

save at the sword's point of strenuous resistance and fierce conflict. I had made a conquest of this singular child: I had discovered her weak point, and had availed myself of it to reduce her to obedience, and also to win her confidence.

Besides, in having Gussie for my subject and devoted follower, my love of pre-eminence was gratified. Here was one person an insignificant person indeed, and a person in very bad odour with the community generally; but still a sentient human creature, with passionate likings and dislikings in her strange incomprehensible nature, who made me her sovereign, her guide, and, as time passed on, her idol! You may imagine how all this soothed and pleased me; it compensated for the lack of much that I had missed so long; it made me impervious to many a sharp rebuff, and heedless of many a scornful glance; it restored my self-complacency, which had almost died out from sheer starvation; it encouraged me to persevere in holding my head above water, and it kindled to a flame every spark of that latent ambition which had been smouldering in my bosom all my life. Gussie's unqualified allegiance, in the state of my affairs just then, was both a source of good and evil.

On the one hand, it preserved me from sinking down into despondency, and from rushing away in mad despair from the injustice and positive miseries of my lot; on the other hand, it ministered to some of the most dangerous propensities of my nature.

It was a bright and beautiful summer, and Cotswoldbury was at its very fairest, when my aunt and cousins went away. The horse-chestnuts were in full blossom, the lilacs were all one purple glow, the hawthorn-bloom was in its prime, and the gay laburnum was weaving on the breeze its golden chains, never had I seen trees in such perfection, for the country was not well wooded round about St. Eldred's, even at some distance from the sea. I loved to walk up and down the stately promenade, through the green aisle-like avenues, where the sunbeams came only faint and flickeringly, and along the quieter roads, where still the umbrageous elm, the large-leaved lime, and the stately sycamore flourished gloriously. Sometimes Miss Hollingsworth took us to the