ty hard at my books," said Hetty; "but I am not clever. And
how I am ever to be as well informed as Miss Davis I don't know. Some
things I remember quite well, and other things I am always forgetting. I
am sure if I ever get any pupils they will laugh at me. I wish I could
live in a little cottage in the fields, and work in a garden and sell
my flowers."

"I should always come and buy from you," said Grace; "what kind of
flowers would you keep?"

"Oh, roses," said Hetty; "roses and violets. When I was in London I saw
people selling them in the streets. I would send them to London and get
money back."

"I think I will come and live with you," said Grace eagerly.

"Grace, don't be a goose," saith Edith; "Hetty has not got a cottage,
and she is going to be a governess."

"Yes," sighed Hetty; "but I shall never remember my dates."

A few days after this conversation occurred, an invitation to a
children's party came from Edith and Grace to all the children at
Wavertree Hall, including Hetty Gray. Mrs. Enderby did not wish Hetty to
know that she had been invited, but Nell whispered the news to her.

"Mamma and Phyllis think you ought not to go," said Nell; "but Mark and
I intend to fight for you. Mark says he was so nasty to you lately that
he wants to make up."

Hetty's eyes sparkled at the idea of having this pleasant variety.

"I shall never be allowed to go," she said.

"Oh, if it is only a frock, you can have one of mine," said Nell; "I
got a new one for the last party, and my one before is not so bad."

"It isn't the frock, I am sure," said Hetty; "it is because I am not to
be a lady. At least," she added, remembering Edith's rebuke, "I am not
to be a party-lady, not a dancing-and-dressing-lady. I am only to be a
book-lady, a penwiper-lady, a needle-and-thread-lady, you know, Nell."

"Oh, Hetty! a penwiper-lady!"

"Yes, haven't you seen them at bazaars?" said Hetty, screwing up her
little nose to keep from laughing.

"I never know whether you are in earnest when you begin like that," said
Nell pouting; "I suppose you don't want to come with us."

However, when Hetty heard that she had really got leave to go "for this
once, because Edith and Grace had made such a point of it," there was no
mistake about her gladness to join in the fun.

"How will you ever keep me at home after this?" she said, as Phyllis and
Nell stood surveying her dressed in one of their cast-off frocks, of a
rose-coloured tint whic