cold didactic east winds, the blasts of reproof,
and chilling precepts, "all for her good," they
found were to be kept carefully from her. She
was not to know the rough things of life, or
she would fade, and the stalk wither and droop.
Thus, when there was destruction and general
break-up going on all about them, they stood
close round her, in a circle as it were, and
affectionately prevented her from seeing. There was
an amiable confederacy to this end. The brother
was rough and sour; the mother querulous, with
every nerve in her system shattered by sorrows;
and the sister, impatient and impetuous, though
full of strong affections—which were not workable
elements on the whole. Yet the family
fused them all together for her sake, smiled for
her sake, talked lightly with aching hearts for her
sake, and concealed all their scars and writhings
for her sake. She was so pretty, so trusting, so
full of little endearing ways, that dark rooms
became lit up with a flash when she entered, and
foreheads overcast with black clouds cleared
suddenly.

And yet she was not one of the flighty grown-
up children who at twenty still find life a toy-
shop. She was what is called "steady," and
took her share in the family duties.

The father in his white waistcoat, from his
door-step, thought the elder sister "a finer
woman," but the current of infantine public
opinion ran in favour of the younger girl. Stray
skirmishers of the family, out under the
command of the London nurse, had met her, and
had been spoken to, and on one day news
was passed forward from burrow to burrow
of the warren, that she had put back her tiny
parasol, stooped over, and bent her bright face
close to that of the then infant's of the family.
There were two uncouth boys, whose habitual
occupation seemed to be hanging their heavy
heads, and dealing with their fingers as if they
were sticks of barley-sugar, and whose faces
began to rage and glow awfully whenever her
name was mentioned, as though a blister had
been newly taken off. She was seen when going
out turning back at the gate to wave salutations
to the windows of the drawing-room with her
tiny parasol, and the bright round face breaking
from its gossamer bonnet as from a shell, flashed
back pretty signals of acknowledgment. And
the pretty picture presently drew swarms to the
windows next door, and stolid faces, mostly busy
with human sugar-stick, lined the plate-glass as
in an amphitheatre. The respective maids, who
had early interchanged cards, talked the matter
over; and through these channels authentic
information trickled through the family, as it were
down the stones of a weir, and which was a
favourable testimonial to Miss Violet's merits.
"She was like a child in the 'ouse," said the
Manuel's Lady to her friend. "And we all looks
on her as a child. The mother would mope
herself away into her grave, only for 'er." Mr.
Louis was a rough, uncivil kind of gentleman,
"with no manners," but Miss Violet some way
"kep" him in order. It was added that this
youth, though only twenty, had the '"ed" of a
man of fifty. As for Miss Manuel, she was a fine
stately creature to look at, "for all the world
like a married woman," and was, in addition, like
one of the famous unmarried "picturs at 'Ampton
Court."

The details of their inner life, though greedily
inquired after, were of course not so full and
satisfactory. Thus they would have been glad
to have had a sketch of the little night-piece in
the drawing- room of Number Three after
Fermor's visit. The mustard-coloured blinds
had been pulled down, plate-glass was happily
out of sight, and their lamp had been lighted.
Mrs. Manuel was busy with some needlework,
which, as reproductive labour, and tested on
principles of political economy, could not hold
its own in the market, but which, taken as a
source of entertainment and of occupation for
the mind, brought back large returns. The
brother, a youth who had been fitted out
with no profession, had shown a repugnance to
entering the underground wine-vaults where
his father had spent so much of his life, as
it were down in a mine. He had no titular
occupation, and went about "mooning;" protested
often against his hard fate in not having been
put early to a profession, and at times was
subject to curious fits of gloom, as though he had
been deeply injured by his family. On this night
he was at the table, busy with a pencil, absently
sketching odd grotesque heads, and ladies with
veils and dogs—an occupation with which he very
often soothed his feelings, injured at not being
"fitted with a profession."

Miss Manuel had been at her piano, and her
sister, in gayer spirits even than usual, had been
getting up, and sitting down, and going out of
the room to fetch something, until the constant
rustle of her silk dress made the youth, who was
sketching, impatient.

"Do, Violet, sit down or stand up; fix on one
or the other," he said.

The sister looked after her affectionately.
"We must excuse her," she said. "I know
what is in her head, and what she is thinking
of."

Her mother, whose fingers were busily crossing
a pair of steel weapons in carte and tierce, as
though they were rapiers, looked over at her too.
"When the two gentlemen were here to-day,"
she said, "I saw it too."

The young girl, who had been still getting up
to search for many things, and falling
unconsciously into innumerable graceful attitudes,
stopped short, and looking away from them
shyly, and with colour rising on her cheeks like
a tide, said, by way of protest, "Such nonsense!
I am sure I don't know what you all mean."

"Ah!" said her sister, greatly pleased, "I saw
to-day what an impression you had made on him.
His distress was almost amusing. He never
took his eye off the other. He was in a most
uncomfortable state all the time."