mbled and
subdued from the moment in which their school-books and toys had
meandered over the whole house, and their looks and likings had been
just as important as anything else. When there is no mother to protect
them, the elder sister's first lover marks a terribly critical period
for the children of the house. They were banished from the
drawing-room, except on special occasions, when they came _en grande
tenue_, in their best things, and were jeered at by Mr. Copperhead. He
called them "the kids," both Amy and Robin were aware, and they resented
it unspeakably. Thus the inward happiness of the Mays confined itself to
the upper regions of the family. Even Betsy regretted the days when, if
she had more to do, she had at least "her kitchen to herself," and
nobody to share the credit. There was more fuss and more worry, if a
trifle less labour, and the increase in consequence which resulted from
being called cook, instead of maid-of-all-work, was scarcely so sweet in
possession as had seemed in prospect.

"Them late dinners" were the object of her perpetual railings; "oh, how
much more comfortable it was, if gentry would but think so, to have your
dinner at two, and get done with your washing up before you was cleaned,
or had any occasion to bother yourself about your cap!" When little Amy
cried over the loneliness of "the children's tea," which they frequently
had to pour out for themselves, Betty gave her a cake and a kiss, and
felt disposed to cry too.

"And she don't know, poor child, not the half," said Betty, which was a
kind of oracular sentence difficult for Betty herself to understand. The
children had nothing to do with the late dinner; they were sent to bed
earlier than they used to be, and scolded if any distant sounds of romps
made itself audible at seven o'clock when their elders were dining; and
then when the little ones went injured to bed, and Johnnie, indignant,
worked at his lessons by himself in a corner of the old nursery, deeply
aware that his school-boy boots and jacket were quite unfit for the
drawing-room, the grown-up young people ran lightly upstairs, all smiles
and pleasure, and those delightful evenings began.

The children sometimes could not get to sleep for the piano and the
raspings of the fiddle, which sounds of mirth suggested nothing but the
wildest enjoyment to them; and when the door opened now and then, bursts
of laughter and mingling voices would come out like the sounds the Pe