"You dear little thing!" she cried. "How
pretty you've grown; and you're taller than
you promised to be. But I should have known
you anywhere. The same eyes; the same
smile. Goodness, what a booby you must
be, Jack, not to have recognised her
instantly. Charles, come here and be presented
to your cousin, Mabel Earnshaw. His name is
Carlo, but I couldn't possibly call him by it; it
sounds so like a dog, doesn't it? At least,
pronounced in my English fashion. And I can't
roll my r's. And here's baby. Isn't she fat?
And she never cries. I consider those the two
most charming qualities possible in a baby." So
Polly rattled on in a blithe good humoured way,
that infected one with good spirits, and looked
as buxom and pleasant a young matron as you
could desire to behold. Her husband was a
quiet ugly bright-eyed little man, very simple
and gentle in manner. An atmosphere of peace
and good will pervaded the family circle.

Mr. Moffatt, the manager, wrote a very
gracious letter to Mrs. Walton, consenting
to give her young relative a trial, on the very
handsome conditions of her performing gratis,
finding her own wardrobe, and making herself
generally useful in the business of the theatre.

"What sort of study are you, Mabel?"
asked her aunt one morning, bringing into the
room a pile of queer little books, covered
with yellow, green, or brown paper.

"What sort of study, Aunt Mary?"

"I mean, do you learn by heart easily and
quickly."

"Yes; I think so."

"Because I've got a list from Mr. Moffatt
of the pieces most likely to be done during
the first week. And you had better begin to
get some of them into your head at once."

"Oh yes, aunt," said Mabel, eagerly, seizing
on the little pile of books, and turning them
over one by one. Her face fell a little as her
examination proceeded. "I don't know any of
these," she said, looking up.

"No, of course not. How should you?
That's why I was anxious that you should have
time to write out a few parts. These are chiefly
prompt-books, and you will not be able to keep
them."

"But," said Mabel, hesitating, and slowly
turning over a few leaves, "they seem to me to
be—to be dreadful nonsense!"

"You'll find that they act well enough,
dear."

"I thought, Aunt Mary, that I might perhaps
have one or two parts in Shakespeare.
I don't mean the leading parts, although I
have studied Rosalind, and Cordelia, and
Imogen, and nearly all Juliet. I mean little parts,
like Celia, or Hero, or Jessica."

Aunt Mary shook her head. "I'm afraid,
Mabel, that you won't get Celia, or Hero, or
Jessica, for the very sufficient reason that the
plays those characters are in, are not at all
likely to be done. Such a thing might happen
on a benefit, or a bespeak; but otherwise Moffatt
sticks to tragedy and farce. But we're sure
to do Hamlet, and I will stipulate for Ophelia
for you. Moffatt's leading lady can't turn a
tune, and so Ophelia generally falls to the singing
chambermaid. But that's very bad, of
course. Meanwhile, get up in those parts that
I've marked with a pencil, there's a good girl."

Aunt Mary bustled away to rehearsal, leaving
Mabel seated before the play-books, uncertain
upon which of them to begin. At length she
took up a melodrama of the old-fashioned
kind, with a band of robbers, and a forest, and
a castle, and a virtuous heroine in distress,
and her equally virtuous though not equally
distressed confidential friend—for there is a
proportion to be observed in these things,
and it would never do to plunge the walking
lady into an equal depth of misery with the
first lady—and a great many high-flown
speeches, full of the most exalted sentiments,
but a little hazy as to grammar, and containing,
perhaps, a somewhat undue proportion of the
vocative case.

Janet was seated opposite her cousin,
engaged in making a fair copy of very confused
and blotted manuscript. John Earnshaw had
recently dictated to her several papers on
chemistry, which had been accepted and paid
for, by the editor of a magazine which professed
to present scientific subjects in a popular form.
Small sums of money have given a deal of
happiness in this large world; but perhaps no
small sum of money ever occasioned a purer joy
than was felt by Mary Walton Earnshaw when
the post-office order arrived in payment for her
husband's first article. It was curiously pathetic
to hear her expressions of proud delight, and
the ingenious manner in which she endeavoured
to convince John—having first most thoroughly
convinced herself—that those two or three
guineas were more important to the household
exchequer than all the earnings of the rest of
the family put together. Janet, as her father's
amanuensis, was making a fair copy of a
manuscript whilst Mabel was looking over her
playbooks.

"I am afraid," said Janet, looking attentively
at her cousin, "that you don't much like
your task, Mabel?"

Mabel blushed. "Oh," said she, "I am
afraid you will think I'm but a poor creature to
break down at the first trial. But it is not
the trouble I mind a bit. I could learn every
word in the play in a couple of hours. Only
I don't think I shall be able to say this. I
shall feel so ashamed."

"Ashamed?"

"Yes; it is such nonsense! Do listen to
this, Janet. 'My lord, I quail not at your
threats. The thunder of your frown hath for
me no terrors. Beware! There may come a
day when retribution, upon lurid wing, shall
blight you even at the zenith of your power.
Beware! beware!"

Janet smiled her rare sweet smile.

"Cousin Mabel, I think your business
will be to make it seem not trash. Don't you
remember the story of the man who made