y poor Mary came to the
Union at home than to the like of that, Miss Rachel."

This alarm, being less reasonable, was even more difficult to talk
down than Mrs. Kelland's, and Rachel felt as if there wore a general
conspiracy to drive her distracted, when on going home she found the
drawing-room occupied by a pair of plump, paddy-looking old friends, who
had evidently talked her mother into a state of nervous alarm. On her
entrance, Mrs. Curtis begged the gentleman to tell dear Rachel what
he had been saying, but this he contrived to avoid, and only on his
departure was Rachel made aware that he and his wife had come, fraught
with tidings that she was fostering a Jesuit in disguise, that Mrs.
Rawlins was a lady abbess of a new order, Rachel herself in danger of
being entrapped, and the whole family likely to be entangled in the
mysterious meshes, which, as good Mrs. Curtis more than once repeated,
would be "such a dreadful thing for poor Fanny and the boys."

Her daughters, by soothing and argument, allayed the alarm, though the
impression was not easily done away with, and they feared that it might
yet cost her a night's rest. These attacks--absurd as they were--induced
Rachel to take measures for their confutation, by writing to Mr.
Mauleverer, that she thought it would be well to allow the pupils to pay
a short visit to their homes, so as to satisfy their friends.

She did not receive an immediate answer, and was beginning to feel vexed
and anxious, though not doubtful, when Mr. Mauleverer arrived, bringing
two beautiful little woodcuts, as illustrations for the "Journal of
Female Industry." They were entitled "The free maids that weave their
thread with bones," and one called "the Ideal," represented a latticed
cottage window, with roses, honeysuckles, cat, beehives, and all
conventional rural delights, around a pretty maiden singing at her
lace-pillow; while the other yclept the "Real," showed a den of
thin, wizened, half-starved girls, cramped over their cushions in
a lace-school. The design was Mr. Mauleverer's, the execution the
children's; and neatly mounted on cards, the performance did them great
credit, and there was great justice in Mr. Manleverer's view that while
they were making such progress, it would be a great pity to interrupt
the preparation of the first number by sending the children home even
for a few hours. Rachel consented the more readily to the postponement
of the holiday, as she had now so