Henry arose the next morning as soon as he heard the step of John in the garden, and was very soon with him, asking him what he could do to help him. Henry loved to help John.

John did not answer in his own cheerful way, but said:

"I don't know, Master Henry; it can't much matter now, I reckon, what we do, or what we leave undone."

"Why, John?" said Henry.

"You will know soon enough," John answered, "but it shan't be from me you shall learn it. I suppose, however," he added, "that we must get the peas for dinner; folks must eat, though the world should come to an end next Michaelmas."

"What is the matter, John?" said Henry; "I am sure something is."

"Well," replied John, "if there is nothing else, is it not enough to have that lady's-maid there in the kitchen finding fault with everything, and laying down the law, and telling me to my face that I don't understand so much as to graff a tree?"

"Who says so, John?" asked Henry.

"Why, my lady's maid," replied John; "that Miss Tilney or Tolney, or some such name, as is written as large as life on her boxes. As to the old lady, she has a good right to come here, but she did very wrong to bring that woman with her, to disturb an orderly family. Why, Master Henry, she makes ten times the jabbering Mag does."

"I wish, then, she would fly away over the barn," said Henry, "as Mag did."

"We would none of us go after her," replied John, "to bring her back; but I am a fool," added the honest man; "here have I lived ever since master came here, and most of these trees did I plant and graff with my own hands, and made the sparrow-grass beds and all, and now this woman is to come with her nonsense, and turn everything topsy-turvy."

Henry was quite puzzled; he saw that John was vexed, and he knew that the words topsy-turvy meant upside-down; but he could not understand how the lady's-maid could turn the roots of the trees up in the air. He was going to ask an explanation, when a very shrill voice was heard screaming, "Mr. John, Mr. John!"

"There again!" cried John, "even the garden can't be clear of her—there, Master Henry, put down the basket and be off, she is no company for you. If you see her, and she asks for me, tell her I am gone to clean the pig-sty; she will not follow me there." So off ran John one way, and Henry another.

But Henry was not so lucky in his flight as John was; he ran into a narrow walk enclosed on each side with filberts, and before he was aware came quite opposite to the lady's-maid. He thought she looked very fine—quite a lady herself; and he stopped short, and wished her good-morning. Had she been the poorest person he would have done the same, for his parents had taken great pains to make him civil to everyone.

"Master Fairchild, I presume," cried the maid. "A charming morning, sir. I was looking for Mr. John, to ask him if he would please to select some flowers to arrange in my mistress's room: she always has flowers in her dressing-room at The Grove."

"John," said Henry, "is gone to clean the pig-sty."

The lady's-maid drew up her lip, and looked disgusted.

"Faugh!" said she, "I shall not think of troubling him to cull the flowers."

"Shall I get some for grandmamma?" asked Henry.

She thanked him for his politeness, and accepted his offer.

The little boy walked before her to where there was a bit of raised ground covered with rose-bushes.

"There, ma'am," he said, "you can gather any you like."

"Upon my word, Master Fairchild, you are uncommon polite," she said; "I shall tell our people at home what a handsome genteel young gentleman you are. They will be so desirous to know all about you—and not at all high and proud neither, though you have such great prospects."

"What do you mean by great prospects, ma'am?" asked Henry; "I do not understand you."

"That is your humility, Master Fairchild," said the maid; "to be sure, this place is but small, and I wonder how you could have managed in it so long, but it is neat and very genteel; yet, when you have seen The Grove, you will think nothing of this little box here."

"What box?" asked Henry.

"This house, Master Fairchild," she answered; "you might put the whole place into the hall at The Grove."

"What an immense hall!" said Henry in amazement.

"Poor Betty, as I tell her," said the maid, "will be quite out of her place amongst so many servants; she can't bear to hear it talked of."

"What talked of?" answered Henry. "But please not to gather the rose-buds; mamma does not like them to be gathered."

"To be sure, Master Fairchild," said the maid, "and that is just right. In a small garden like this one should be particular; yet, at The Grove, a few rose-buds would never be missed. But you are a very good young gentleman to be so attentive to your dear mamma; I am sure I shall delight our people by the account I shall have to give when I go back; and I am to go back when Mrs. Johnson comes, and that will be in a few days. I shall tell them there that you are not only very good, but vastly genteel, and so like pretty Miss Ellen—and she was quite a beauty—dear young lady! You will see her picture as large as life in the drawing-room at The Grove, Master Fairchild."

When she saw the maid, she, too, said, "Good-morning."

"That young lady is your sister, no doubt, Master Fairchild," said the maid.

"It is Emily," said Henry.

Emily was as much puzzled as Henry had been with Miss Tilney's speeches. She said, "Thank you, ma'am," however, and walked away with Henry.

Their grandmother had slept later than usual; she had not rested well in the early part of the night, and had fallen asleep after the rest of the family were gone down.

She was not, therefore, present in the parlour; and when Henry came in, and had gotten his breath—for he and Emily had run to the house—he began to repeat some of the things which the maid had said to him, and to ask what they meant. Emily also repeated her speech to herself; and Lucy looked to her mother to explain these strange things.

"Cannot you guess, my children?" said Mrs. Fairchild, rather changing countenance; "but I had hoped that for a few days this business might not be explained to you. Our servants would not have told you, but I see that others will, so perhaps it is best that you should hear it now."

"What is it, mamma?" said all three at once; "nothing bad, we hope."

"Not bad," replied Mrs. Fairchild, "though it is what I and your dear papa had never wished for."

"Oh, do tell us!" said Lucy, trembling.

Mrs. Fairchild then told them that, by the death of their poor cousin, their father had come into the possession of the house and estate at The Grove, and, in fact, the whole of his late brother's fortune.

The children could not at first understand this, but when they did, they were much excited.

Their mother, after a while, told them that it would probably be necessary for them to leave that dear place, and go to The Grove, their grandmamma wishing to be always with them, and having her own comfortable rooms at The Grove.

Lucy and Emily began to shed tears on hearing of this, but they said nothing at that time.

Henry said:

"But John, mamma, and Betty—what can we do without them?"

"Can't they go with us, my dear?" said Mrs. Fairchild.

"And John Trueman, and nurse, and Mary Bush, and Margery, and—and—and——" added Henry, not being able to get out any more names in his impatience.

"And the school!" said Emily.

"We do not live in the same house with these persons last mentioned," answered Mrs. Fairchild, "and therefore they would not miss us as those would do with whom we may reside; we must help them at a distance. If you, Lucy and Emily, have more money given you now, you must save it for these poor dear people. Kind Mrs. Burke will divide it amongst them as they want it; and she will look after the school."

"Oh, Emily!" said Lucy, "we will save all we can."

Emily could not speak, but she put her hand in Lucy's, and Lucy knew what that meant.

Who could think of lessons such a day as this? As soon as breakfast was over, Henry ran to talk to John about all that he heard: and Lucy and Emily, with their mother's leave, went out into the air to recover themselves before they appeared in the presence of their grandmother. They were afraid of meeting the maid, so they went up to the top of the round hill, and seated themselves in the shade of the beech-trees.

For a little while they looked about them, particularly down on the house and garden and the pleasant fields around them, every corner of which they knew as well as children always know every nook in the place in which they have spent their early days. They were both shedding tears, and yet trying to hide them from each other. Lucy was the first who spoke.

"Oh, Emily!" she said, "I cannot bear to think of leaving this dear home. Can we ever be so happy again as we have been here?"

The little girls were silent again for some minutes, and then Lucy went on:

"Oh, Emily! how many things I am thinking of! There—don't you see the little path winding through the wood to the hut? How many happy evenings we have had in that hut! Shall we ever have another? And there is the way to Mary Bush's."

"Do you remember the walk we had there with Betty a long time ago?" said Emily.

"Ah! I can remember, still longer ago, when you were very little, and Henry almost a baby," said Lucy, "papa carrying us over the field there to nurse's, and getting flowers for us."

"I should like," she added, "to live in this place, and all of us together, just as we are now, a hundred years."

"I feel we shall never come back if we go away," said Emily.

"We shall never come back and be what we have been," replied Lucy; "that time is gone, I know. This is our last summer in this happy place. Oh, if I had known it when we were reading Henry's story at the hut, how very sad I should have been!"

"I cannot help crying," said Emily; "and I must not cry before our poor grandmamma."

"These things which are happening," said Lucy, "make me think of what mamma has often said, that it seldom happens that many years pass without troubles and changes. I never could understand them before, but I do now."

"Because," added Emily, "we have lived such a very, very long time just in the same way."

The two little girls sat talking until they both became more calm; but they had left off talking of their own feelings some time before they left the hill, and began to speak of their grandmother; and they tried to put away their own little griefs, as far as they could, that they might comfort her. With these good thoughts in their minds, they came down the hill and returned to the house.

"I don't care so much now," said Henry, meeting them at the door; "John says he will go with us, if it is to the world's end, or as far as the moon; and Betty says she will go too; and we can take the horse and Mag—so we shall do. But grandmamma is up and has had her breakfast, and we have got the Bath-chair ready, and she says that she will let us draw her round the garden; and I am to pull, and John says he will come and push, if the lady's-maid is not there too. He says that the worst thing about going with us, is that lady's-maid; and he hopes, for that reason, that the house will be very large."

Lucy and Emily ran to their grandmother; she was in the drawing-room; she kissed and blessed them, and looked at them with tears in her eyes.

"Grandmamma," said Lucy, "we have thought about it, and we will go with you to The Grove, and be your own children; only we would like you best to stay here."

"My own sweet children," replied the old lady, "we will refer all these things to your papa and mamma. I am too old, and you are too young, to manage worldly matters; so we will leave these cares to those who are neither so young nor so old; God will guide them, I know, to what is best."

"Come, grandmamma," said Henry, putting his head only into the room, "the carriage is ready."

"And so am I," said the old lady, and she stepped out into the passage, and was soon in her Bath-chair.

John was ready to push, but seeing the maid come out to take her place behind the chair, he walked away without a word.

Miss Tilney, as she called herself, had not much to say before her mistress, so that she did not disturb the little party.

They did not go beyond the garden, but stopped often in shady places, where one of the children sat at their grandmother's feet, and the others on the grass.

The old lady seemed sometimes to have difficulty to be cheerful. She was often thinking, no doubt, of what was going on at The Grove, for the funeral was not over. She could not yet speak of the children she had lost.

Lucy guessed what made her sad, and for some minutes she was thinking what she could say to amuse her; she thought of several subjects to speak about; and, young as she was, settled in her own mind she must not speak of anything sad. At last she thought of what she would say, and she began by asking her if she saw a high piece of ground covered with trees at some distance.

"I do, my dear," replied the old lady.

"Would you like to hear about an old house which is beyond that wood?"

The grandmother was not so desirous of hearing about the old house, as she was to hear how her little grand-daughter could talk. By the words of children we may learn a great deal of their characters, and how they have been taught; and so she begged Lucy to tell her about this old house.

It was Mrs. Goodriche's house that Lucy meant: and she began by telling what sort of a house it was; and who lived in it now; and what a kind lady she was; and how they went often to see her; and what pretty stories she could tell them, particularly about Mrs. Howard.

"Mrs. Howard!" repeated old Mrs. Fairchild, "I have heard of her; I knew the family of the Symondses well. Do, Lucy, tell me all you know about that good lady."

How pleasant it was to Lucy to think that she had found out the very thing to amuse her grandmother; and she went on, and on, until, with a word or two now and then from Emily, she had told the two stories of Mrs. Howard, and told them very prettily and straightforward—not as Henry would have done, with the wrong end foremost, but right forward, and everything in its place. Mrs. Fairchild had always accustomed her little girls to give accounts of any books they read; and Lucy had always been particularly clever in doing this exercise well.

Grandmamma was very much pleased with Lucy's stories—pleased every way; and it might be seen that she was so by her often asking her to go on.

The maid was also much amused, and when Lucy had told all, she said to her mistress:

"Indeed, ma'am, Miss Lucy is a most charming young lady, as agreeable as she is pretty, and I am sure you have the greatest reason to be proud of her; and, indeed, of the other young lady, too, Miss Emily; and Master Fairchild himself, he does honour to his family."

"None of this, Tilney, I beg," said the old lady; "I rejoice in what I see of these dear children, and I thank God on their account; but we must not flatter them. I thank my Lucy for her stories, and her wishes to amuse poor grandmamma; and I thank my gentle Emily for the help she has given; but as to little boys in pinafores doing honour to their families, you must know that is quite out of the question. It is enough for me to say that I love my little boy, and that I find him very kind, and that I think his dear papa and mamma have, so far, brought him up well."

About noon the little party went into the house: the old lady lay down to read, and the rest went to their own rooms. They met again at dinner, and at tea; then came another airing; and they finished the day with reading the Bible and prayers.

Several days passed much in the same way, till Mr. Fairchild returned. He brought grandmamma's own servant with him; and Miss Tilney, to the great joy of John and Betty, went the next day.

Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild had much business to do, for it was settled that they were all to move to The Grove in the autumn; but the old lady, having her own maid with her, and having become very fond of the children, did not depend on her son and daughter for amusement.

After Mr. Fairchild returned, she went out much farther in the Bath-chair, and was drawn to many of the places loved by the children. That summer was one of the finest ever known in the country, and many were the hours spent by the little party about the Bath-chair, in the shade of the woods.

"Will it not sound very strange to you, my dear children," said old Mrs. Fairchild, "to hear me talk of people, whom I knew very well, who were born one hundred years or more ago? But when you know that I can remember many things which happened seventy years ago, and that I then knew several people who were more than seventy years old—even Henry will be able to make out more than a hundred years since the time that they were born."

"Stop, grandmamma," said Henry, "and I will do the sum in the sand."

Henry then took a stick and wrote 70 on the ground.

"Now add to that another seventy, and cast it up, my boy," said grandmamma.

"It comes," cried Henry, "to a hundred and forty; only think, grandmamma, you can remember people who were born a hundred and forty years ago: how wonderful!"

"And the odd years are not counted," remarked Emily: "perhaps if we were to count them they might come up to a hundred and fifty."

"Very likely, my dears," said the old lady; "so do you all sit still, and I will begin my story.

"One hundred and, we will say, forty years ago, there resided near the town of Reading, in which I was born, a very wealthy family, descended from the nobility, though through a younger son.

"There are some reasons why I shall not mention the real name, or rather the first name of the family, for it had two; I will therefore give the second, which was Vaughan. They had many houses and fine lands, amongst which was The Grove, the place which we have now.

"The Mrs. Vaughan who was married one hundred and forty years ago was a very particular woman, and insisted on abandoning all her pleasant places in the country, and residing in a very dull and dismal old-fashioned place just at the end of one of the streets at Reading. I shall tell you more about that place by-and-by.

"This lady had four daughters before she had a son; not one of these daughters ever married. They were reared in the greatest pride, and no one was found good enough to marry them. There was Mistress Anne, and Mistress Catherine, and Mistress Elizabeth, and Mistress Jane, for in these old days the title of Miss was not often used.

"After many years, Mrs. Vaughan added a son to her family, and soon afterwards became a widow.

"This son lived many years unmarried, and was what you, my children, would call an old man, when he took a young and noble wife. The daughter and only child of this Mr. Vaughan was about my age, and she is the person whose history I am going to tell you.

"There is a picture of her at The Grove in the room in which your dear cousins spent many of their early days. It is drawn at full length, and is as large as life. It represents a child, of maybe five years of age, in a white frock, placing a garland on the head of a lamb; behind the child, an old-fashioned garden is represented, and a distant view of The Grove house in which she was born."

"But, grandmamma," said Henry, "you have not told us that little girl's name."

"Her name was Evelyn," answered the old lady; "the only person I ever knew with that name."

"But it is a pretty one," remarked Lucy.

"There were a great many people to make a great bustle about little Evelyn, when she came: there were her own mother and her father, and there were the four proud aunts, and many servants and other persons under the family, for it was known that if no more children were born, Evelyn would have all her father's lands, and houses, and parks, and all her mother's and aunts' money and jewels.

"But, with all these great expectations, Evelyn's life began with sorrow. Her mother died before she could speak, and her father also, very soon after he had caused her picture to be drawn with the lamb."

"Poor little girl!" said Lucy; "all her riches could not buy her another papa and mamma. But what became of her then, grandmamma?"

"She was taken," added the old lady, "to live under the care of her aunts, at the curious old house I spoke of as being close at the end of the town of Reading; and she desired to bring nothing with her but the pet lamb, which, by this time, was getting on to be as big as a sheep, though it still knew her, and would eat out of her hand, and would frisk about her.

"The four Mistresses Vaughan were at the very head and top of formal and fashionable people. As far as ever I knew them, and I knew them very well at one time, they were all form, and ceremony, and outside show, in whatever they did, until they were far, very far advanced in years, and had been made, through many losses and sorrows, to feel the emptiness of all worldly things. But I have reason to hope that the eyes of some of them were then opened to think and hope for better things than this life can give; but I shall speak of them as they were when Evelyn was under their care, and when I was acquainted well with them.

"The entrance to the house where they lived was through heavy stone gates, which have long since been removed; and along an avenue formed by double rows of trees, many of which are now gone.

"I have often, when a little child, been taken by my nurse to walk in that avenue; and I thought it so very long, that had I not seen it since, I could have fancied it was miles in length."

"That is just like me, grandmamma," said Henry; "when I was a little boy, I used to think that the walk through Mary Bush's wood was miles and miles long."

"And so did I," added Emily; and then the story went on.

"At the farthest end of this avenue," continued grandmamma, "the ground began to slope downwards, and then the house began to appear, but so hidden by tall dark cypress-trees, and hedges, and walls, I may call them, of yew and box and hornbeam, all cut in curious forms and shapes, that one could only here and there see a gable, or a window, or door, but in no place the whole of the front. The house had been built many, many years before, and it was a curious wild place both within and without, though immensely large. The way up to the door of the principal hall was by a double flight of stone steps, surmounted with huge carved balustrades. Nothing could, however, be seen from any window of the house but trees; those which were near being cut into all sorts of unnatural forms, and those which were beyond the garden growing so thickly as entirely to shut out the rays of the sun from the ground below."

"I should like to see that place, grandmamma," said Lucy.

"You would see little, my child," replied the old lady, "of what it was seventy years ago. I am told that it is altogether changed. But if the place was gloomy and stiff without, it was worse within, where the four old ladies ordered and arranged everything. I can tell you how they passed their days. They all breakfasted either in their own dressing-rooms or in bed, being waited upon by their own maids."

"Why did they do that, grandmamma?" asked Henry.

"I will tell you, my dear," answered the old lady. "At that time, when I was a little girl, and knew those ladies, people dressed in that stiff troublesome way which you may have seen in old pictures.

"The ladies wore, in the first place, very stiff stays; and those who thought much of being smart, had them laced as tight as they could well bear. Added to these stays, they wore hoops or petticoats well stiffened with whalebone. Some of these hoops were of the form of a bell with the mouth downwards—these were the least ugly; others were made to stand out on each side from the waist, I am afraid to say how far; but those made for grand occasions were nearly as wide as your arm would be, if it were extended on one side as far as it would go. Over these hoops came the petticoats and gowns, which were made of the richest silk—for a gown in those days would have cost thirty or forty pounds. Then there was always a petticoat and a train; and these, in full dress, were trimmed with the same silk in plaits and flounces, pinked and puckered, and I know not what else. The sleeves were made short and tight, with long lace trebled ruffles at the elbows; and there were peaked stomachers pinned with immense care to the peaked whalebone stays. It was quite a business to put on these dresses, and must have been quite a pain to walk in the high-heeled silk shoes and brilliant buckles with which they were always seen. They also wore watches, and equipages, and small lace mob caps, under which the hair was drawn up stiff and tight, and as smooth as if it had been gummed."

"Oh, I am glad I did not live then!" said Lucy, fetching a deep breath; "yet it is very pleasant to hear these stories of people who lived just before we did; and there is no harm in liking it, is there, grandmamma?"

"None in the least, my child," said grandmamma; "the persons who remember anything of those times are getting fewer and fewer every day. If young people, then, are wise, instead of always talking their own talk, as they are too apt to do, they will have a pleasure in listening to old persons, and in gathering up from them all they can tell of manners and customs, the very memories of which are now passing away. But now, Henry, my boy, you may understand why the Mistresses Vaughan always breakfasted in their own rooms; they never chose to appear but in their full dress, and were glad to get an hour or two every morning unlaced, and without their hoops.

"About noon they all came swimming and sailing down into a large saloon, where they spent the rest of their morning. It was a vast low room, with bright polished oaken floors, and with only a bit of fine carpet in the middle of it. They each brought with them a bag for knotting, and they generally sat together in such state till it was time for their airing.

"This airing was taken in a coach-and-four; and they generally went the same road and turned at the same place every day but Sunday throughout the week. They dined at two, and drank tea at five; for though they had some visitors who came to tea, they were too high to return these visits. They finished every evening by playing at quadrille; supped at nine, and then retired to their rooms."

"What tiresome people!" said Henry; "how could they spend such lives? I would much rather live with John Trueman, and help to thatch, than have been with them."

"But how did they spend their Sundays, grandmamma?" asked Emily.

"They went to church in Reading," answered the old lady; "where they had a grand pew lined with crimson cloth. They never missed going twice; they came in their coach-and-four; they did not knot on Sundays, but I can hardly say what they did beside."

Lucy fetched a deep breath again, and grandmamma went on.

"It was to this house, and to be under the care of these ladies, that little Miss Evelyn came, the day after her father's funeral. She was nearly broken-hearted.

"The Mistresses Vaughan were not really unkind, though very slow in their feelings; so, after the funeral, they soothed the child, taking her with them from The Grove to their own house, where she afterwards always remained. But they did another unfeeling thing, without seeming to be aware of it: Evelyn's nurse had been most kind to her, but she unhappily spoke broad Berkshire, and was a plain, ordinary-looking person; so she was dismissed, with a handsome legacy left by her master, and the poor little girl was placed under the care of a sort of upper servant called Harris. Harris was charged never to use any but the most genteel language in her presence, and to treat her with the respect due to a young lady who was already in possession of a vast property, though under guardians.

"Three handsome rooms in one wing of the house on the first floor were given to the little lady and Harris; and an inferior female servant was provided to wait upon them in private, and a footman to attend the young lady in public. It was not the custom for young children then to dine with the family; the only meal, therefore, which Evelyn took with her aunts was the tea, when she saw all the company who ever visited them; her breakfast and dinner were served up in her own rooms.

"She was required to come down at noon, and to go down and salute her aunts and ask their blessing; and whenever any one of them declined the daily airing, she was invited to take the vacant place as a great treat.

"Her education was begun by Harris, who taught her to read, to use her needle, and to speak genteelly; it was afterwards carried on by masters from Reading, for her aunts had no sort of idea of that kind of education which can only be carried on by intellectual company and teachers. Harris was told that no expense would be spared for Miss Vaughan; that her dress must be of the first price and fashion; that if she desired toys she was to have them, and as many gift-books as St. Paul's Church-yard supplied.

"As to her religious duties, Harris was to see that she was always very well dressed, and in good time to go to Church with her aunts; that she was taught her Catechism; and that she read a portion every day of some good book; one of the old ladies recommending the Whole Duty of Man, another Nelson's Fasts and Festivals, a third Boston's Fourfold State, whilst the fourth, merely, it is to be feared, in opposition to her sisters, remarked, half aside to Harris, that all the books above mentioned were very good, to be sure, but too hard for a child, and therefore that the Bible itself might, she thought, answer as well, till Miss Vaughan could manage hard words. As Harris herself had no particular relish for any of the books mentioned, she fixed upon the Bible as being the easiest, and moreover being divided into shorter sections than the other three.

"So Evelyn was to have everything that a child could wish for that could be got with money; and though Harris minded to the letter every order that was given her, yet she thought only of serving herself in all she did. In private with the child she laid praises and flattery upon her as thick as honey in a full honeycomb; she never checked her in anything she desired, so long as she did nothing which might displease her aunts, should it come to their knowledge; she scarcely ever dressed her without praising her beauty, or gave her a lesson without telling her how quick and clever she was. She talked to her of the fine fortune she would come into when she was of age; of her mamma's jewels, in which she was to shine; of the fine family houses; and, in short, of everything which could raise her pride; and there was not a servant about the house who did not address the little girl as if she had not been made of the same flesh and blood as other people."

"Poor little girl!" said Lucy.

"I am sorry for her," remarked Emily; "she must have been quite spoiled by all these things."

"We shall see," continued the old lady. "It was in a very curious way that I, many years afterwards, learned many particulars of the ways and character of this little girl in her very early years, before I was personally acquainted with her. After my eldest son was born, being in want of a nursemaid, Fanny, the very servant who had waited on Miss Evelyn and Mrs. Harris, offered herself; and as I had known her well and loved her much, though I had lost sight of her for some years, I most gladly engaged her. She told me many things of Mrs. Harris and her little lady, which I never could have known otherwise. She said that Mrs. Harris was so much puzzled at the ways of the little girl, that she used often to speak of it to Fanny.

"'Miss Evelyn,' she said one day, 'is the queerest little thing I ever met with; I don't know where her thoughts are. When I am dressing her to go down to tea in the saloon, and putting on her nice smart dresses, and telling her to look in the glass and see how pretty she is—and to be sure she is as pretty as any waxwork—she either does not answer at all, as if she did not hear me, or has some out-of-the-way question to ask about her lamb, or some bird she has seen, or the clouds, or the moon, or some other random stuff; there is no fixing her to any sense.'

"'Perhaps, Mrs. Harris,' Fanny said, 'she has heard your praises, and those of other people, till she is tired of them.'