ughter; it needs
no more words to explain her exact position. From morning to night Effie
was busy, very busy, doing what she herself called nothing. She was
getting discontented with her life. A feeling of discontent had stolen
over her ever since her eldest brother George had gone to London, to
help his uncle in a large warehouse. For months the dream of her life
was to give up the little duties near at hand, and to take some great
duties which nobody wanted her to do, far away from home. She was quite
prepared for the advice which her friend Dorothy Fraser, who lived all
the year round in London, and only came home for the holidays to
Whittingham, was able to give her. Effie's conscience was not in the
least pricked at the thought of leaving her mother--it seemed to her
quite right. "Had she not to make the most of her youth? Why should she
spend all her young days in looking after the children, and making
things tolerable for her father and mother?"

These thoughts kept swiftly passing through her brain, as she
noiselessly laid the table and made it look charming and pretty. When
all was done, she took up a little frock of one of the children's, and,
sitting down by the window, began to work. Her pretty dark head was bent
over her task; her thick curling lashes lay heavy on her rounded cheek.
Mrs. Staunton, who had been having a doze on the sofa, started up now
and looked at her.

"Oh, Effie dear, I have had such a nice sleep," she said, with a little
sigh; "I am ever so much the better for it. But what have you done with
baby?"

"I have put him to sleep, mother; he is in his cot now, as comfortable
as possible."

"How good of you, Effie! What a comfort you are to me!"

Effie smiled. "I think I hear father coming in," she said, "and supper
is quite ready."

Mrs. Staunton started up from the sofa; she pushed back her tumbled
hair, and shook out her somewhat untidy dress.

"Now let me make you trim," said Effie.

She ran over to her parent, put back her gray hair with an affectionate
little touch, and then kissed her mother on her flushed cheeks.

"You look better for your nice sleep, mother," she said.

"So I am, darling, and for your loving care," replied Mrs. Staunton.

Her husband came into the room, and she took her place before the
tea-tray.

Supper at the Stauntons' was a nondescript sort of meal. It consisted of
meat and vegetables, and tea and cakes and puddings, all placed on the
table togeth