the cream, but Rhoda made the butter
up into pretty golden pats, and wrapped them in cool, dark-green leaves.
Rhoda tended the little flower patches in the garden, whilst her aunt
saw to the vegetables. The light home-work, too, was Rhoda's; but the
rough, laborious scrubbing and washing were done by her aunt and the
only little maid they kept.

When Rhoda was about eighteen, another niece of Priscilla Parry's died
in London, leaving one little girl quite unprovided for. All the other
relatives decided that, as Priscilla was a single woman doing well in
the world, it was clearly her duty to adopt the child, and without
waiting for her consent, or her refusal, which was the more likely, they
packed off little Joan to her great-aunt's farm.

The child was under six years of age, puny and pale and sickly, having
lived most of her time in a close back room, up three pairs of stairs,
in a London house of business, where her mother had been housekeeper.
Her only playfellow had been a cat, and the prospect from her window had
been the walls of the houses on the opposite side of a narrow court, and
a mere streak of sky above them.

Miss Priscilla did not at all like to have another child thrown upon
her. Her plans had been laid long ago, and to adopt Joan would quite
upset them. She intended to make Rhoda independent, that she might have
no temptation to marry for a home when her aunt died. Getting married,
to Aunt Priscilla, usually meant the greatest misfortune that could
befall a woman; and to guard Rhoda from it was the fixed purpose of her
life.

Like Queen Elizabeth, she could not forgive anyone belonging to her, man
or woman, who was foolish enough to marry. Her old man-servant, Nathan,
had escaped this error, like herself; and both of them had lived free
and single and wise, as Miss Priscilla Parry often said, even to their
old age. Her cherished day-dream was that Rhoda would follow their
example, and dwell with her in tranquillity and peace, until she
herself closed her eyes, and fell asleep, in the course of twenty years
or more, leaving Rhoda a staid, discreet, and unmarried woman of middle
age.

Here was another child come, a girl too; and if she grew fond of Joan
she would have the same misfortune to dread for her, and feel the same
desire to save her from it. But she was a proud woman, proud of her
character and name, and she could not turn the desolate child away. She
was in some measure religious too, and