ly interest in everything that concerned her,
though strictly following their well-meant plan of not showing her any
particular personal affection. "We must not bring her up in a hothouse,"
they said, "only to put her out in the cold afterwards." In this they
thought themselves exceptionally wise people; and who shall say whether
they were or not? It suited Phyllis admirably to follow in the footsteps
of her father and mother; but what was merely prudence on the part of
her elder benefactors often appeared something much more unamiable when
practised towards Hetty by a girl not many years her senior. Miss Davis,
who was a rigid disciplinarian and trusted as such by her employers,
thought chiefly of breaking down the pride and temper of the child, and
of bending her character so as to fit her for the hard life that was
before her; a life whose difficulties and trials had been bitterly
experienced, and not yet all conquered or outlived by the conscientious
governess herself. Nellie, who was Hetty's only comfort in the great
and, as it seemed to her, unfriendly house, too often showed her
sympathy in a covert way which made Hetty feel she was half ashamed of
her affection; and this deprived such tenderness of the value it would
otherwise have had.

Hetty, now above eleven years old, was very much grown and altered. Her
once short curly hair was long, and tied back from her face with a plain
black ribbon. Her face was singularly intelligent, her voice clear and
quick, her eyes often much too mournful for the eyes of a child, but
sometimes flashing with fun, as, for instance, when Mark engaged her in
some piece of drollery. Then the old spirit that she used to display
when she performed her little mimicries for Mrs. Rushton's amusement
would spring up in her again, and she would take great delight in seeing
Mark roll about with laughing, and hearing him declare that she was the
jolliest girl in the world.

One Easter time, just two years after Hetty's return to the Hall, when
Mark was at home for his holidays, he proposed to Hetty to play a trick
on Miss Davis. Hetty's eyes danced at the thought of a trick of any
kind. She did not have much fun as a rule, and Mark's tricks were always
so funny.

"It isn't to be a bad trick, I hope," she said, however.

"Oh! no, not at all. Only to dress up and pretend to be people from her
own part of the world coming to see her and to bring her news. We will
be an old couple who know he