nursery-governess, in a poor but respectable
family, some few miles distant.

Esther was little more than seventeen, but
had, like Bellario's representative, a mind
"more elder than her years." A richer rosebud
than Esther never brightened a cottage-
garden. What might have fallen to Esther's
lot, had she been born in a higher station, we
cannot say. As it was, she merely won all the
hearts with which the course of a quiet humble
existence brought her in contact. She had
known no schooling, beyond what was attainable
in her native village; all she knew beside,
and that was not a little, being due to self-
education and industry.

Esther was already known at the Graize, and
her unlooked-for appearance, at a moment,
too, when the master's absence left everybody
more at liberty, created a complete jubilee; all
the domestics, save Mrs. Mapes, the housekeeper,
who was an invalid, vying with each other to
make welcome their bright young visitor.

"If ever I see such a blessed creetur in my
life!" said Dolly, the dairymaid. "She have
no more pride than my hold slipper!"

Certainly, the object in question—frayed at
the edges, cracked in the sole, and exhibiting an
orifice at the toe—could have small excuse for
the vice referred to.

"She's well enough, for the matter of that,"
said Mrs. Turnover, with affected indifference.

"Excuse me, ma'am," said Gertrude Cornish,
the housemaid, "but I don't think you're as
proud as you justly ought to be. Being as she
howes to you her tiptop hedication—which she's
fit to kip a school herself—why, you ought to
be double proud of such a consekence."

"I done my best for to putt her in the way,"
said Mrs. Turnover, modestly, "but she 'ave
'elped herself wonderful since. So I thought it
were better for to let her alone."

"S'pose she'll marry soon, and stock a dairy-
farm," observed Dolly, to whom this was the
very climax of ambitious hope.

"She might have married a doctor," said
Mrs. Turnover, "but I wouldn't hear on it. An
'ectic, sicky young man, and hadn't no patients
but himself, which, my dear, it didn't pay."

"A doctor!" cried Gertrude. "She might
marry a duke! Werry likely will"

The hardihood of this prophecy almost took
away Mrs. Turnover's breath, but, recovering,
she proposed that, master being absent, they
should adjourn to the great hall, there to meet
her niece, on the latter's return from a ramble
in the woods, in order to show her the family
pictures adorning that apartment.

Almost as they entered it, the pretty girl,
fresh and rosy from her scamper, made her
appearance, and told them of her meeting with
Colonel Lugard. They then proceeded to
examine the hall, which contained, besides the
pictures, many family relics, some fine suits of
armour, and other objects of interest.

"What werry broad toes they seem to 'ave
'ad in those days!" remarked Dolly, examining
one of the suits.

"S'pose wearin' harmour giv' bunions," was
the conjecture of Mrs. Turnover.

Esther suggested that, as steel and stockings
might not act comfortably together, it was not
impossible room was allowed for the intervention
of a shoe.

"Harmour's wuss than nothin' at all, now-a-
days," observed the cook. "Cannons, guns,
and pistils does it; don't they, Esther?"

Miss Vann responded that, in her opinion, a
gentleman provided with a light field-piece, a
rifle, and a revolver, might prove a troublesome
opponent, even for a human iron-clad.

Mrs. Turnover, who was of full habit, though
hardly, as Miss Mulcaster had affirmed, "enormous,"
now took a little repose in an arm-chair,
after which the party proceeded to inspect the
pictures, Mrs. Turnover continuing her services
as cicerone.

"'Sir 'Ildebrand de Gosling, 1423'—that is,
it were him, but he's rubbed out, all but his
dog," said the guide.

"Law! what a pity!" said Dolly.

"Which, Mrs. Mapes told me, it on'y makes
him the more waluable," continued Mrs. Turnover.
"'Leftenant-General Sir Hedered Gosling,
twelfth barrownight.' Wasn't he a 'ansum
man?"

"Why is he a-turnin' of his back to the
fightin'?" asked the captious critic, Dolly.
"That ain't like a soldier."

Esther hinted that the artist might have
experienced some difficulty in arranging that the
general should, at one and the same time, give
his attention to the battle, and his face to the
observer.

"'Sir Gilbert Gosling, banker and citizen,'"
announced their guide. "Rayther a fat 'un."

"'Thrice Lord Mayor of London,' which
explains the phenomenon," said Esther, laughing,
and exhibiting two dimples which lay in
ambush in her rosy cheeks.

"And now we comes to the ladies," resumed
Mrs. Turnover. "'Dame Winifred Dorothea
de Gosling.' 'Miss Halithea Gosling.' I've
heard say thissun was the beauty of the hase,
warn't never married, lived single all her life,
and died a old maid."

Dolly sighed. The cook's way of putting it
gave the calamity treble force.

"Poor young creetur! and she so pretty!
Cut off in her prime!"

"'Died 1703, ætat 92,'" read the cook.
"Well, that ain't so wonderful! Eat at ninety-
two? Stop, though. What's 'ætat,' Esther?"

Her niece was absorbed in contemplation of
a portrait at another part of the hall; but she
heard, and answered the appeal.

" 'Aged,' dear."

"Come, that wan't so bad," said Mrs. Turnover.
"If she couldn't get a husband in ninety
year, it wan't worth trying no longer, so my
lady giv' in."

"I shouldn't like to die an old maid,"
observed Dolly. "Should you, ma'am?"

"Being a widow, I can't be expected to
realise anything so frightful, you see,"