former time.

Mrs. Bennett had already launched forth an answer to Sophia's
enthusiasm. She continued, in spite of Trenholme's intervening remarks.
"When I was a girl papa always warned us against talking on serious
subjects. He thought we could not understand them."

"I think it was good advice," said Sophia with hardihood.

"Oh yes, naturally--papa being a dean--"

Trenholme encouraged the conversation about the dean. It occurred to him
to ask if there was a portrait extant of that worthy. "We are such
repetitions of our ancestors," said he, "that I think it is a pity when
family portraits are lacking."

Mrs. Bennett regretted that her father's modesty, the fortunes of the
family, etc.; but she said there was a very good portrait of her uncle,
the admiral, in his son's house in London.

"I do not feel that I represent my ancestors in the least," said Miss
Bennett, "and I should be very sorry if I did."

She certainly did not look very like her mother, as she sat with
affectionate nearness to Sophia Rexford, accomplishing more work in an
hour with her toil-reddened hands than her mother was likely to do in
two.

"Ah, ladies' feelings!" Trenholme rallied her openly. "But whatever you
may _feel_, you assuredly do represent them, and owe to them all you
are."

"Very true," said the mother approvingly. "Papa had black hair,
Principal Trenholme; and although my daughter's hair is brown, I often
notice in it just that gloss and curl that was so beautiful in his."

"Yes, like and unlike are oddly blended. My father was a butcher by
trade, and although my work in life has been widely different from his,
I often notice in myself something of just those qualities which enabled
him to succeed so markedly, and I know that they are my chief reliance.
My brother, who has determined to follow my father's trade, is not so
like him in many ways as I am."

If he had said that his father had had red hair, he would not have said
it with less emphasis. No one present would have doubted his
truthfulness on the one point, nor did they now doubt it on this other;
but no one mastered the sense and force of what he had said until
minutes, more or less in each case, had flown past, and in the meantime
he had talked on, and his talk had drifted to other points in the
subject of heredity. Sophia answered him; the discussion became general.

Blue and Red came offering cups of tea.

"Aren't they pretty?" said the youngest Miss Brown,