o see if I looked (in the mirror) at
all like the picture of Rosalba in the _Rose and the Ring._ I was
trying to see my feet as well as my hair, when I heard Arthur jumping
the three steps in the middle of the passage between his room and
mine. I had only just time to spring into the window-seat, and tuck my
feet under me, when he gave a hasty knock, and bounced in with his
telescope in his hand.

"Oh, Mary," he cried, "I want you to see the Old Squire, with a
great-coat over his evening clothes, and a squash hat, marching up and
down Mary's Meadow."

And he pulled up my blind, and threw open the window, and arranged the
telescope for me.

It was a glorious night. The moon was rising round and large out of
the mist, and dark against its brightness I could see the figure of
the Old Squire pacing the pathway over Mary's Meadow.

Saxon was not there; but on a slender branch of a tree in the hedgerow
sat the nightingale, singing to comfort the poor, lonely old Man in
the Moon.

CHAPTER II.

Lady Catherine is Mother's aunt by marriage, and Mother is one of the
few people she is not rude to.

She is very rude, and yet she is very kind, especially to the poor.
But she does kind things so rudely, that people now and then wish that
she would mind her own business instead. Father says so, though Mother
would say that that is gossip. But I think sometimes that Mother is
thinking of Aunt Catherine when she tells us that in kindness it is
not enough to be good to others, one should also learn to be gracious.

Mother thought she was very rude to _her_ once, when she said, quite
out loud, that Father is very ill-tempered, and that, if Mother had
not the temper of an angel, the house could never hold together.
Mother was very angry, but Father did not mind. He says our house will
hold together much longer than most houses, because he swore at the
workmen, and went to law with the builder for using dirt instead of
mortar, so the builder had to pull down what was done wrong, and do it
right; and Father says he knows he has a bad temper, but he does not
mean to pull the house over our heads at present, unless he has to get
bricks out to heave at Lady Catherine if she becomes quite unbearable.

We do not like dear Father to be called bad-tempered. He comes home
cross sometimes, and then we have to be very quiet, and keep out of
the way; and sometimes he goes out rather cross, but not always. It
was what Chris said about