amelessly!"

Meanwhile Vera rises silently and pushes Tommy and all his enormities
gently by the shoulders out of the room. Then she turns round and faces
her foe.

"Judge between us, Eustace!" the old lady is crying; "am I to be defied
and set at nought? are we all to bow down and worship Miss Vera, the most
useless, lazy person in the house, who turns up her nose at honest men
and prefers to live on charity, a burden to her relations?"

"Vera is no burden, only a great pleasure to me, my dear mother," said
the clergyman, holding out his hand to the girl.

"Oh, grandmamma, how unkind you are," says Marion, bursting into tears.
But Vera only laughs lazily and amusedly, she is so used to it all! It
does not disturb her.

"Is she to be mistress here, I ask, or am I?" continues Mrs. Daintree,
furiously.

"Marion is the mistress here," says Vera, boldly; "neither you nor I have
any authority in her house or over her children." And then the old lady
gathers up her work and sails majestically from the room, followed by her
weak, trembling daughter-in-law, bent on reconciliation, on cajolement,
on laying herself down for her own sins, and her sister's as well, before
the avenging genius of her life.

The clergyman stands by the hearth with his head bent and his hands
behind him. He sighs wearily.

Vera creeps up to him and lays her hand softly upon his coat sleeve.

"I am a firebrand, am I not, Eustace?"

"My dear, no, not that; but if you could try a little to keep the peace!"
He stayed the caressing hand within his own and looked at her tenderly.
His face is a good one, but not a handsome one; and, as he looks at his
wife's young sister, it is softened into its best and kindest. Who can
resist Vera, when she looks gentle and humble, with that rare light in
her dark eyes?

"Vera, why don't you look like that at Mr. Gisburne?" he says, smiling.

"Oh, Eustace! am I indeed a burden to you, as your mother says?" she
exclaims, evasively.

"No, no, my dear, but it seems hard for you here; a home of your own
might be happier for you; and Gisburne is a good man."

"I don't like good men who are poor!" says Vera, with a little grimace.

Her brother-in-law looks shocked. "Why do you say such hard worldly
things, Vera? You do not really mean them."

"Don't I? Eustace, look at me: do I look like a poor clergyman's wife? Do
survey me dispassionately." She holds herself at arm's length from him,
and looks comically up a