o the admiration both of the Colonel and of Lady Temple herself; all,
however, by intuition, for not a word had been hinted to her of what
had passed during that game at croquet. She certainly was a most winning
creature; the Colonel was charmed with her conversation in its shades
between archness and good sense, and there was no one who did not look
forward with dread to the end of her visit, when after a short stay with
one of her married cousins, she must begin her residence with the blind
uncle to whose establishment she, in her humility, declared she should
be such a nuisance. It was the stranger that she should think so, as she
had evidently served her apprenticeship to parish work at Bishopsworthy;
she knew exactly how to talk to poor people, and was not only at home in
clerical details herself, but infused them into Lady Temple; so that, to
the extreme satisfaction of Mr. Touchett, the latter organized a treat
for the school-children, offered prizes for needlework, and once
or twice even came to listen to the singing practice when anything
memorable was going forward. She was much pleased at being helped to do
what she felt to be right and kind, though hitherto she had hardly known
how to set about it, and had been puzzled and perplexed by Rachel's
disapproval, and semi-contempt of "scratching the surface" by the
commonplace Sunday-school system.

CHAPTER XII. A CHANGE AT THE PARSONAGE.

"What could presumptuous hope inspire."--Rokeby.

There had been the usual foretaste of winter, rather sharp for
Avonmouth, and though a trifle to what it was in less sheltered places,
quite enough to make the heliotropes sorrowful, strip the fig-trees, and
shut Colonel Keith up in the library. Then came the rain, and the result
was that the lawn of Myrtlewood became too sloppy for the most ardent
devotees of croquet; indeed, as Bessie said, the great charm of the
sport was that one could not play it above eight months in the year.

The sun came back again, and re-asserted the claim of Avonmouth to be
a sort of English Mentone; but drying the lawn was past its power, and
Conrade and Francis were obliged to console themselves by the glory
of taking Bessie Keith for a long ride. They could not persuade their
mother to go with them, perhaps because she had from her nursery-window
sympathized with Cyril's admiration of the great white horse that was
being led round to the door of Gowanbrae.

She said she must stay at