nce.'

'Of course, of course.' Then there was a slight laugh, and the
companions proceeded to other gossip.

Ethelberta, calm and compressed in manner, sidled along to extricate
herself, not daring to turn round, and Dan and Sol followed, till they
were all clear of the spot. The brothers, who had heard the words
equally well with Ethelberta, made no remark to her upon them, assuming
that they referred to some peculiar system of courtship adopted in high
life, with which they had rightly no concern.

Ethelberta ostensibly continued her business of tutoring the young
workmen just as before, though every emotion in her had been put on the
alert by this discovery. She had known that Neigh admired her; yet his
presumption in uttering such a remark as he was reported to have uttered,
confidentially or otherwise, nearly took away her breath. Perhaps it was
not altogether disagreeable to have her breath so taken away.

'I mean to marry that lady.' She whispered the words to herself twenty
times in the course of the afternoon. Sol and Dan were left considerably
longer to their private perceptions of the false and true in art than
they had been earlier in the day.

When she reached home Ethelberta was still far removed in her
reflections; and it was noticed afterwards that about this time in her
career her openness of manner entirely deserted her. She mostly was
silent as to her thoughts, and she wore an air of unusual stillness. It
was the silence and stillness of a starry sky, where all is force and
motion. This deep undecipherable habit sometimes suggested, though it
did not reveal, Ethelberta's busy brain to her sisters, and they said to
one another, 'I cannot think what's coming to Berta: she is not so nice
as she used to be.'

The evening under notice was passed desultorily enough after the
discovery of Neigh's self-assured statement. Among other things that she
did after dark, while still musingly examining the probabilities of the
report turning out true, was to wander to the large attic where the
children slept, a frequent habit of hers at night, to learn if they were
snug and comfortable. They were talking now from bed to bed, the person
under discussion being herself. Herself seemed everywhere to-day.

'I know that she is a fairy,' Myrtle was insisting, 'because she must be,
to have such pretty things in her house, and wear silk dresses such as
mother and we and Picotee haven't got, and have money t