an into the door of
the White Bear. She went straight upstairs, and in the chamber which
they shared found her Aunt Edith.

Lettice had no idea how uneasy Edith had been all that day. She had a
vague, general idea that she was rather a favourite with Aunt Edith--
perhaps the one of her nieces whom on the whole she liked best: but of
the deep pure well of mother-like love in Edith's heart for Dudley
Murthwaite's daughter, Lettice had scarcely even a faint conception.
She rather fancied herself preferred because, as she supposed, her
mother had very likely been Aunt Edith's favourite sister. Little
notion therefore had Lettice of the network of feeling behind the
earnest, wistful eyes, as the aunt laid a hand on each shoulder of the
niece, and said--

"Well, Lettice?"

"Aunt Edith," was the answer, "if that is the world I have been in
to-day, I hope I shall never go again!"

"Thank God!" spoke Edith's heart in its innermost depths; but her voice
only said, quietly enough, "Ay so, dear heart? and what misliked thee?"

"It is all so queer! Aunt Edith, they think the world is something
good. And they want me to paint my face. And they call Aunt Temperance
`Starch.' And they say I am only two years old. And they purse up
their faces, and look as if it were something strange, if I quote the
Bible. And they talk about being married as if it must happen, whether
you would or not, and as if it were the only thing worth thinking about.
And they seemed to think it was quite delightful to have a lot of
gentlemen bowing at yon, and saying all sorts of silly things, and I
thought it was horrid. And altogether, I didn't like it a bit, and I
wanted to get home."

"Lettice, I prayed God to keep thee, and I think He has kept thee. My
dear heart, mayest thou ever so look on the world which is His enemy,
and His contrary!"

Edith's voice was not quite under her control--a most unusual thing with
her.

"Aunt Edith, I did think at first--when Mrs Rookwood came--that I
should like it very well. I felt as if it would be such a pleasant
change, you know, and--sometimes I have fancied for a minute that I
should like to know how other maids did, and to taste their life, as it
were, for a little while; because, you see, I knew we were so quiet, and
other people seemed to have more brightness and merriment, and--well, I
wanted to see what it was like."

"Very natural, sweet heart, at thy years. I can well believe it."

"An