but whose minute dogmatism on details is to be
contemned—have received a sweeping verdict of
censure. It is certain that Miss Furblow, the
draper's daughter, who was not very refined in
her conversation, once told Lily that she had a
face like the portrait of Mr. Tom Spring, the
prizefighter. But, all that was irregular and all
that was animal in the little girl's countenance
found compensation, a hundredfold, in the merry
smile that lighted up her lineaments at the
slightest encouragement; in the wistful, wishing,
intelligent beam that played in her eyes;
in her soft and pleading look when she was
told a doleful tale. She had a temper of
her own, a warm and somewhat peppery one,
but it found no vent in black looks, bitten
lips, flashing eyes, and clenched hands. When
she was moved she turned very red, and
spoke very quickly, and then all the pent-up
feelings found relief in a flood of passionate
tears. It was dangerous to meddle with her
then, for she would shake you off with that
delightful childish backward movement of the hand
which can only be thoroughly conveyed to the
mind of a non-spectator by registering the
accompanying interjection: the French "Na," the
English "I shan't." But when Lily had said
"I shan't," and "Be quiet" (in crescendo), and
"It's a shame," a few times, she calmed down,
and the sun of her smiles came out in splendour.
Her tempers were as easy to quell as they were
difficult to rouse. She would bear a prodigious
amount of teasing. Injuries, cross words, she
would endure with a surprising meekness and
equanimity; or she would strive to disarm her
persecutor by caresses and endearing speech.
But contempt irritated her. She was, when
scorned, as pugnacious as a robin-redbreast.
You might laugh at her, but it were better not
to sneer at her. Perhaps this passionate
resentment of contumely arose from Lily being
somewhat vain.

She was now eight years old, and neither a
dunce nor an intellectual prodigy. Her masters
and mistresses had very few complaints to bring
against her. Since that first memorable morning
when she sat down on the drugget and said
"I won't," she had always rendered an implicit
and cheerful obedience to Mrs. Bunnycastle and
her assistants. In the way of "doing as she
was told," she was a pattern to the other young
ladies. Now and then in the schoolroom she was
reprimanded for talking at unseasonable times,
for her tongue was as alert and vivacious as the
"clever pony" in a butcher's cart, and required to
be reined in occasionally. Now and then, Miss
Barbara had had to scold her for carelessness,
for treading her shoes down at heel, for inking
her pinafore, or losing her pocket-handkerchief.
Once or twice, one of the governesses—but this
was when Lily was very young indeed—had
been compelled to interfere when she was in
her tempers, and had recommended a short
sojourn in the corner as a means of cooling
those tempers down. These were her gravest
scholastic offences, unless, indeed, I take
account of one or two desperate attempts she
made when she got older, to shield her playfellows
from reproof, and to take upon herself the
blame they had incurred. I believe all candid
and unprejudiced instructresses of feminine
youth who read this, will agree with me that the
two master vices with which they have to cope
are the proneness of their young charges to
pertness and sauciness in reply, and their painful
addictedness to that form of deception which
is known as "slyness." But Lily was never
pert, and she could not be sly. With the
exception of the attempts at shielding offenders
mentioned above, which were usually so
transparent as to be at once detected, she would not
venture even upon a white lie.

Be it also, to the honour of the little woman,
recorded, that she never grumbled. Now, in
order to be a grumbler at school it does not at
all follow that you must be ill treated. Discontent
is as often the result of satiety as of
privation. A lapdog oftener growls over his
chicken and cream, than a mongrel does over
his bare bone. At plentiful harvests farmers
(who murmur at everything, and would have
"wanted rain" in the garden of Eden) murmur
most. I dare say that a workhouse child fed on
gruel and "seconds" bread from year's end to
year's end, is, in the long run, less given to
repine at her lot than a young lady at boarding-
school, with three abundant meals a day, and
the certainty of enjoying meals as many, and as
abundant, on the morrow. The Bunnycastles
were economical, and made as much out of the
housekeeping as they, with decency,
conveniently could; but they neither starved the
five-and-thirty, nor fed them on coarse and
unwholesome food, pregnant with boils and
blains and skin diseases. The butcher's cart
called regularly, and the joints he brought were,
if not prime, nourishing. But Lily lived,
nevertheless, in an atmosphere of grumbling.
The great girls had no dearer pastime than
to gird at their instructresses, and accuse them
of the most deliberate meanness in the article
of dietary. The Miss Bunnycastles could never
assume a new silk dress without its being darkly
hinted in the schoolroom that it was "got out
of us girls." The first plateful of meat at dinner-
time was denounced as shamefully deficient as
to quantity and quality; the second "help"
was held up to scorn as a shameful and cruel
imposture. The Wednesday mess of fish and
boiled rice was cited as a standing attempt to
rob the boarders of their due, and their parents
of the money they paid. "Unlimited diet,
indeed!" would cry Miss Furblow, tossing up her
head. "Is that nasty suet-pudding they give
us twice a week, unlimited diet?" Satirical
poems were made against the meat-pie, which
made its appearance every Monday morning.
Occasionally the round of beef and mutton was
relieved by a piece of veal, and then the
malcontents declared that Clodshop (Clodshop
was the butcher) had lost a calf by disease, and
had sold it to the Bunnycastles, cheap. There
was no end to their grumbling. Lily listened
to it all, marvelling greatly, but forbearing to