ll who are shocked by Miss
Brooke's practice, that she had begun it by order of a doctor as a cure
for neuralgia. She continued it because she liked it. Lesley was only
just beginning to suspect her aunt of the habit, and was inexpressibly
startled and alarmed at the thought of such a thing. That her aunt, who
was indisputably kind, clever, benevolent, respectable in every way,
should smoke cigarettes, seemed to Lesley to justify all that she had
heard against her father's Bohemian household. She could not get over
it. Sarah _had_ got over this outrage on conventionality, but she was
not yet prepared to forgive Lesley for having lived in a French convent.

"Oh, you're not sure about the house," said Miss Brooke. "Well, I'm
sorry for you, Sarah. I'll send in a plumber if you think that would be
any good."

"No, ma'am, don't; but if it will not ill-convenience you I should like
to put a few tracts in Miss Lesley's room, so that she may look at them
sometimes instead of the little book of Popish prayers that she has
brought with her."

Miss Brooke wondered for a moment what the book of Popish prayers could
be; and then remembered a little Russia-bound book--the well-known
"Imitation of Christ" which she had noticed in Lesley's room, and which
Sarah had doubtless mistaken for a book of prayer. It would not have
been at all like Miss Brooke to clear up the mistake. She generally let
mistakes clear themselves. She only gave one of her short, clear, rather
hard laughs, and told Sarah to put as many tracts as she pleased in
Lesley's room. Whereon, Lesley shortly afterwards found a bundle of
these publications in her room, and, as she rather disliked their tone
and tendency, she requested Sarah to take them away.

"They were put there for you to read," said Sarah, with stolid
displeasure.

"By my aunt?"

"Your aunt knew that I was going to put them there. And it would be
better for you to sit and read them rather than them rubbishy books you
gets out of master's libery. Your poor, perishing soul ought to be
looked after as well as your body."

"Take them away, please," said Lesley, wearily. "I do not want to read
them: I am not accustomed to that sort of book." Then, the innate
sweetness of her nature gaining the day, she added, "Please do not be
angry with me, Sarah. I would read them if I thought that they would do
me any good, but I am afraid they will not."

"Just like your mother," Sarah said, sharply. "She wouldn