ent bosom when her father read her that postscript. Mr.
May was singularly amiable that day, a thing which happened at
periodical intervals, usually after he had been specially "cross." On
this occasion there was no black mark against him in the family
reckoning, and yet he was more kind than any one had ever known him.
Instead of making any objections, he decided at once that Ursula must
go, and told her to put on her prettiest frock, and make herself look
very nice.

"You must let Anne Dorset see that you care to please her," he said.
"Anne is a very good woman, and her approval is worth having."

"Oh, papa!" cried Janey, "when you are always calling her an old maid!"

"L'un n'empeche pas l'autre," he said, which puzzled Janey, whose French
was very deficient. Even Ursula, supposed to be the best French scholar
in the family, was not quite sure what it meant; but it was evidently
something in favour of Cousin Anne, which was sweet to the grateful
girl.

Janey, though suffering bitterly under the miserable consciousness of
being only fourteen, and not asked anywhere, helped with disinterested
zeal to get her sister ready, and consoled herself by orders for
unlimited muffins and cake for tea.

"There will only be the children," she said, resignedly, and felt
herself _incomprise_; but indeed, the attractions of a good romp
afterwards, no one being in the house to restrain the spirits of the
youthful party, made even Janey amends.

As for Reginald, who was not asked, he was, it must be allowed, rather
sulky too, and he could not solace himself either with muffins or romps.
His rooms at the College were very pleasant rooms, but he was used to
home; and though the home at the Parsonage was but faded, and not in
such perfect order as it might have been, the young man felt even his
wainscoted study dull without the familiar voices, the laughter and
foolish family jokes, and even the little quarrels which kept life
always astir. He walked with Ursula to the station, whither her little
box with her evening dress had gone before her, in a half-affronted
state of mind.

"What does he want with a pupil?" Reginald was saying, as he had said
before. "A fellow no one knows, coming and taking possession of the
house as if it belonged to him. There is plenty to do in the parish
without pupils, and if I were not on the spot he would get into trouble,
I can tell you. A man that has been ploughed, 'a big hulking fellow'
(Sir Robe