vely morning, when he is lying there, and my poor
Clara is caged up at that place--the two who would the most enjoy it.'

'Your going to see her will be as good as the spring morning.'

'Poor child! I dread it!' sighed Jem.

It was his first voluntary mention of his sister. He had always turned
the conversation when Mrs. Ponsonby or Mary had tried to inquire for
her, and Mary was glad to lead him on to say more.

'I remember her last when you were teaching her to run alone, and
letting none of us touch her, because you said she was your child, and
belonged to no one else.'

'I should not be so ungrateful, now that I am come to the sense of my
responsibility in teaching her to go alone.'

'But she has Aunt Catherine,' said Mary, thinking that he was putting
the natural guardian out of the question as much now as in the days
referred to.

'My grandmother never had to do with any girl before, and does not
profess to understand them. She let Clara be regularly a boy in
school, at first learning the same lessons, and then teaching; and
whatever I tried to impress in the feminine line, naturally, all went
for nothing. She is as wild as a hare, and has not a particle of a
girl about her!'

'But she is very young.'

'There it is again! She grows so outrageously. She is not sixteen,
and there she is taller than granny already. It is getting quite
absurd.'

'What advice do you want on that head?'

'Seriously, it is a disadvantage, especially to that sort of girl, who
can't afford to look like a woman before her time. Well, as she must
probably depend on herself, I looked out for as good a school as could
be had for the means, and thought I had succeeded, and that she would
be brought into some sort of shape. Granny was ready to break her
heart, but thought it quite right.'

'Then, does it not answer?'

'That is just what I can't tell. You have been used to schools: I wish
you could tell me whether it is a necessary evil, or Clara's own
idiosyncrasy, or peculiar to the place.'

'Whether what is?'

'Her misery!'

'Misery! Why, there is nothing of that in her letters to my aunt.
There is not a complaint.'

'She is a brave girl, who spares granny, when she knows it would be of
no use to distress her. Judge now, there's the sort of letter that I
get from her.'

Mary read.

'DEAREST JEMMY,--Write to me as quick as ever you can, and tell me how
Louis is; and let me come home, or I shall run mad.