e our
lives. Football is what you do in this season, when you don't hunt, and
before the ice is bearing? We are poor creatures; we can't parcel out
our lives, according as it is time for football or cricket. You must not
be so severe upon girls for being so inferior to you."

("Oh, don't be too hard upon him,") whispered Ursula, in a parenthesis,
afraid that this irony should drive the pupil to desperation. ("Hard
upon him! he will never find it out,") Phoebe whispered back in the same
tone.

"Oh, hang it all, I don't mean to be severe upon girls," said Clarence,
pulling his moustache with much complacency; "I am sorry for them, I can
tell you. It ain't their fault; I know heaps of nice girls who feel it
horribly. What can they do? they can't go in for cricket and football.
There ought to be something invented for them. To be sure there is
lawn-tennis, but that's only for summer. I should go mad, I think, if I
had nothing to do."

"But you have more brain and more strength, you see, than we have; and
besides, we are used to it," said Phoebe. "I am afraid, Ursula,
grandmamma will want me, and I must go."

Here Mr. May said something to his daughter which filled Ursula with
excitement, mingled of pleasure and displeasure.

"Papa says, will you come to dinner to-morrow at seven? It appears there
is some one you know coming--a Mr. Northcote. I don't know who he is,
but it will be very kind if you will come on my account," the girl
concluded, whispering in her ear, "for how shall I ever get through a
dinner-party? We never gave one in my life before."

"Of course I will come," said Phoebe. "Dinner-parties are not so common
here that I should neglect the chance. I must thank Mr. May. But I hope
you know who Mr. Northcote is," she added, laughing. "I gave an account
of myself loyally, before I permitted you to ask me; but Mr.
Northcote--Oh, no! he does not belong to----the lower classes; but he is
a fiery red-hot----"

"What?" cried eager Janey, pressing to the front. "Radical? I am a
radical too; and Reginald used to be once, and so was Ursula. Oh, I wish
it was to-night!" said Janey, clasping her hands.

"Not a radical, but a Dissenter; and you who are a clergyman, Mr. May! I
like you, oh, so much for it. But I wonder what the people will say."

"My dear Miss Beecham," said the suave Churchman, quite ready to seize
the chance of making a point for himself, "in the Church, fortunately,
what the people say has not t