annot help it. I do not want to
interfere, but as it is for me, I must beg you to tell me you are not
pressing to stay with me when Lady Martindale wishes for you.'

'No one ever wants me. No, but papa thinks that you and I cannot be
trusted together. He says he cannot leave me with one who has so little
authority.'

That indignant voice contrasted with the gentle answer, 'I do not
wonder; I have always thought if I had been older and better able to
manage--'

'No such thing!' exclaimed Theodora; 'you are the only person who ever
exercised any control over me.'

'O, hush! you do not know what you are saying.'

'It is the truth, and you know it. When you choose, every one yields to
you, and so do I.'

'Indeed, I did not know it,' said Violet, much distressed. 'I am very
sorry if I am overbearing; I did not think I was.'

Theodora fairly laughed at such a word being applied to the mild,
yielding creature, who looked so pale and feeble. 'Very domineering,
indeed!' she said. 'No, no, my dear, it is only that you are always
right. When you disapprove, I cannot bear to hurt and grieve you,
because you take it so quietly.'

'You are so very kind to me.'

'So, if papa wishes me to come to good, he had better leave me to you.'

'I don't think that ought to be,' said Violet, feebly.

'What, not that you should be my only chance--that you should calm me
and guide me when every one else has failed--'

'Theodora, dear, I do not think I ought to like to hear you say so. It
cannot be safe for you to submit to me rather than to your father.'

'He never had any moral power over me. He never convinced me, nor led
me to yield my will,' said Theodora, proud perhaps of her voluntary
submission to her gentle sister-in-law, and magnifying its extent; but
Violet was too right-minded, in her simplicity, to be flattered by an
allegiance she knew to be misplaced.

'I should not like baby to say so by and by,' she whispered.

'There's an esprit de corps in parents,' cried Theodora, half angrily;
'but Helen will never be like me. She will not be left to grow up
uncared for and unloved till one-and-twenty, and then, when old enough
for independence, be for the first time coerced and reproached. If
people never concern themselves about their children, they need not
expect the same from them as if they had brought them up properly.'

'That is a sad thought,' pensively said the young mother.

'I declare you shall hear the letter, t