.'

As Elizabeth said this, they came to a shop where Anne wished to buy
some little presents for some children in the village at home, who, she
said, would value them all the more for not being the production of the
town nearest them. They pursued their search for gay remnants of
coloured prints, little shawls, and pictured pocket-handkerchiefs, into
the new town, and passed by Mr. Higgins's shop, the window of which was
adorned with all the worst caricatures which had found their way to
Abbeychurch, the portraits of sundry radical leaders, embossed within a
halo of steel-pens, and a notice of a lecture on 'Personal
Respectability,' to be given on the ensuing Friday at the Mechanics'
Institute, by the Rev. W. Pierce, the Dissenting preacher.

Mr. Higgins appeared at the shop door, for the express purpose, as it
seemed, of honouring Miss Merton and Miss Woodbourne each with a very
low bow.

'There, Helen, is my punishment,' said Elizabeth; 'since you are
desirous of poetical justice upon me.'

'Not upon you,' said Helen, 'only upon Harriet.'

'Harriet has lost Fido,' said Elizabeth.

Here Rupert came to meet them, and no more was said on the subject.

Rupert obeyed his sister tolerably well during most of the day, though
he was sorely tempted to ask Elizabeth to send Anne an abstract, in
short-hand, of the lecture on Personal Respectability; but he
refrained, for he was really fond of his cousin, and very good-natured,
excepting when his vanity was offended.

Anne however was in a continual fright, for he delighted in tormenting
her by going as near the dangerous subject as he dared; and often, when
no one else thought there was any danger, she knew by the expression of
his eye that he had some spiteful allusion on his lips. Besides, he
thought some of the speeches he had made in the morning too clever to
be wasted on his mother and sister, when his cousins were there to hear
them, and Anne could not trust to his forbearance to keep them to
himself all day, so that she kept a strict watch upon him.

In the evening, however, Mr. Woodbourne called her and Helen to play
some Psalm tunes from which he wanted to choose some for the Church. He
spoke to her in a way which made her hope that he did not think her
quite foolish, but she would have been glad to stay and keep Rupert in
order. However, she was rejoiced to hear Elizabeth propose to him to
play at chess, and she saw them sit down very amicably.

This pr