thers, came about the house; some of whom, thinking to be facetious,
would occasionally begin to tease Miss Nan, she being the youngest
admitted to lunch or afternoon tea. But this shy, freckled young
person, whose eyes could laugh up so quickly, had a nimbleness of wit
and dexterity of fence that usually left her antagonist exceedingly
sorry. One can imagine a gay young swallow darting about in the
evening, having quite satisfied himself as to food, and thinking only
in his frolicsome way of chevying and frightening the innocent insect
tribe. But what if, by dire mischance, he should dart at something and
find he had seized--a wasp! Some of the merry young gentlemen were
glad to leave the Beautiful Wretch alone.

However, all these things must now be looked upon as bygones.
Seventeen has come; its dignity and seriousness have followed upon the
frolics of untutored youth; and the sweet charm of maidenhood has
smoothed down such angularities as were formerly permissible. If Miss
Anne Beresford shows her independence now, it is mostly in a sort of
half-declared contempt of sentimentalities and flirtations--of which,
to be sure, she sees a good deal around her. She likes to be alone;
she reads much; she has ideas; she worships Mr. Huxley; and she needs
no other company than her own when she goes off on long explorations of
curving shore or inland vale. On this particular afternoon, for
example, she was walking all the way to Brighton from Newhaven, having
already walked to the latter place in the morning; and as her light and
free step carried her over the close, warm, thyme-scented turf, she was
smiling to herself--at some incident, no doubt, that her memory had
recalled.

Well, at this moment some one addressed her.

'Young lady!'

She had been vaguely aware that a woman was sitting there, by the side
of some furze bushes; but she had kept her eyes away, being a little
afraid of tramps. On being challenged, however, she turned and looked,
and then she saw that this was no ordinary tramp, but an itinerant
musician well known along the south coast by the name of Singing Sal.
She was a good-looking, trimly-dressed, strapping wench of
five-and-twenty, with a sun-tanned face, brilliant white teeth when she
laughed, and big brown eyes that were at once friendly and audacious in
their scrutiny. She looked indeed more like a farmer's daughter
dressed for market-day; but on one side of her, on the green-sward, lay
a