ly ask them to eat all the fish he had caught--bream
and dace and all. The first pleasure of young anglers is to catch these
small fry; and the next is, to make their sisters and cousins eat them.
Sophia solemnly assured her cousins that mamma never allowed Sydney's
fish to come to table, at least in the house. If the children liked to
get the cook to boil them for their dolls' feasts in the schoolroom,
they might.

"And then Miss Young is favoured with a share, I suppose?" said
Margaret.

"Have you made acquaintance with Miss Young yet?" inquired Mr Enderby.

"Oh, yes! I had the pleasure of knowing Miss Young long before I knew
you."

"Long! how long? I was not aware that you had ever met. Where did you
meet?"

"In the schoolroom, before breakfast,--full four hours before you called
this morning."

"Oh, that is all you mean! I wondered how you should know her."

Sophia asked whether Margaret and Miss Young were not going to study
together: Margaret assented. Miss Young was kind enough to promise to
help her to read German.

"And you?" said Mr Enderby to Hester.

"Why, no; I am rather afraid of the undertaking."

"And you, Miss Grey?"

"No. Mamma says, I have enough to do with my history and my music;
especially while my cousins are here. I began German once, but mamma
thought I was growing awry, and so I left it off. I find Mrs Rowland
means Matilda to learn German."

"We are all disposed to have my little nieces learn whatever Miss Young
will be kind enough to teach them; they will gain nothing but good from
her."

"She is very learned, to be sure," observed Sophia.

"And something more than learned, I should think," said Hester; "I fancy
she is wise."

"How can you have discovered that already?" asked Mr Enderby, whose
fingers were busy dissecting a stalk of flowering grass.

"I hardly know; I have nothing to quote for my opinion. Her
conversation leaves a general impression of her being very sensible."

"Sensible, as she is a woman," observed Margaret; "if she were a man,
she would be called philosophical."

"She _is_ very superior," observed Sophia. "It was mamma's doing that
she is the children's governess."

"Philosophical!" repeated Mr Enderby. "It is a happy thing that she is
philosophical in her circumstances, poor thing!"

"As she happens to be unprosperous," said Margaret, smiling. "If she
were rich, and strong, and admired, her philosophy would be laughed at;
it wou