tender heart, broke down and began to cry.
She could not bear to think of the pretty clever
little darling she loved and worshipped so having
to work, for work and self-dependence were
unintelligible ideas to Maggie's indolent dreamy
temper. She could not understand her dear
Polly slaving like the teachers she had known;
it seemed like setting a lark to plough.
Boisterously in on her tears broke Bob, her brother,
the man of the house, and heard all her
complaint, and laughed at it, and then, to comfort
her, suggested that Polly should be invited for
a week to Blackthorn Grange before she went
to Lanswood.

"Would you like her to come, Bob?" Maggie
inquired, with eager wistfulness, as if a
thought had sprung up in her mind full
grown.

"Yes, if she is pretty," said Bob, coolly.

"She is as pretty as pretty can be. But
perhaps mother won't; she could not endure
Laura's friend," sighed Maggie, and desponded
again. She was, however, the youngest daughter
of three, and, being fresh from school, some
indulgence was due to her; and when her grief
and its reason why were explained, Mrs.
Livingstone consented to Polly's being asked
for a week—not for longer—until she saw for
herself what sort of a little body she was.
Maggie wrote in exuberant joy and haste,
putting the invitation into the most cordial glad
words, and making everything (with Bob's
assistance) so smooth and easy on the way to the
Grange and forward to the Warden House
afterwards, that there was no room for doubt or
discussion, only for a plain Yes or No. Jane
obtained that it should be Yes, and Polly
despatched the reply, in which her smiles and
dimples and delight were soberly reflected, as
became a young woman about to begin the
world on her own account. Bob was permitted
to read this letter of Polly's, as a reward for his
goodness; but by the time it came, it is sad to
record that he was growing rather tired of her
praises, which Maggie sang in the ears of the
household all day.

"Plague take your Polly Curtis; you can
talk of nothing else," cried Laura, whose friend
had proved a failure, and this on the very
morning of the day when Polly was to arrive;
and Fanny, the other sister, who was very good
natured as a general thing, went so far as to add
that she should not be sorry when Maggie's
"governess friend" had been and gone; she
was not partial to governesses.

And about half-past four in the soft grey
January twilight Polly came. Mrs. Livingstone,
mindful of all courtesies, all hospitalities, met
her in the porch, and brought her in with a
kiss, and Laura and Fanny were very polite,
notwithstanding their previous bit of temper;
and Maggie, after turning her round ecstatically,
and looking at her by fire-light and window-
light, declared that she was just like herself,
and her own dear darling little mite of a Polly,
and what a horrid shame it was to make her a
stupid old cross-patch of a governess!

"Maggie!" interposed her mother, with a
world of rebuke in her voice.

"Polly does not care what I say, does she?"
murmured Maggie, turning her round affectionately
and peeping under her bonnet—girls wore
cottage-bonnets in those days, which were like
eaves over their modest faces.

"I like it," said Polly, and glanced round at
the assembly with ineffable patronage and self-
possession. She felt inexpressibly important;
was she not here on an independent visit,
previous to entering on an independent career of
praiseworthy labour?

"Oh, you wee bit solemn goosey, come up-
stairs!" cried Maggie, and bore her off, dignity
and all, to the room they were to share; and
the mother and sisters, left behind, laughed
gently and said there was something very odd
about the little creature, but she seemed nice
—not much like a governess, however.

Polly's box had been carried up-stairs before
her, and Maggie watched the opening of it
with much interest and curiosity.

"I want you to look your very bonniest,"
said she. "My mother takes the queerest
fancies for and against people, and I want her
to take a fancy to you. She could not bear
Laura's friend, Maria Spinks, and she won't
have her here again. She took to you at first
sight from the way she kissed you—I know she
did, and I'm so glad."

"I am pleased, too—I like to be liked,"
said Polly. "She is a very grand old lady,
Maggie, you never told me."

"Bob is like her—the only one of us that is
—he hasn't come home yet; he is out with the
hounds to-day—the meet was at Ellerston Gap
this morning, and, here is your old pink frock;
put it on, Polly; you can't help looking bonnie
in your pink."

"Must I? It was my last summer's best.
It is too smart a colour for me, now that I am
a governess, but Jane said I might wear it out
of evenings in the school-room. I have a new
brown French merino for Sundays, and this old
violet I travelled in for every day; and Jane
gave me a new white muslin—not that there is
any chance of my wanting such a thing, but
she would insist on my having it—and white
satin ribbon. I can wear all white, you know.
Do you think it is prettily made, Maggie?"

"Oh, you sweet little witch, it's beautiful,
and you'll be a fairy in it! You shall wear it
to-night, and everybody shall fall in love with
you!" cried Maggie. But Polly with intense
decision folded it up, and said that, indeed,
she was not going to make a show of herself,
not even to please her stupid old jewel of a
Maggie.

"You never had any sense of the fitness of
things, you precious old dear," said she.
"Picture me in white muslin and all the rest of you
in thick dresses—this is only for a party or a
concert, you know. I had better put on my
new brown merino."

"I won't have you in brown—brown has
nothing to do with my wee little rosy daisy,"