ard; "and, Harriot, take your new sister with you, and help her
to entertain your friends." Yes, he called me Harriot again, and
afterwards invented new names for his daughter and me, and always
called us by them, apparently in jest; yet I knew it was only because
he would not hurt me with hearing our names reversed. When sir Edward
desired us to shew the children into another room, Ann and I walked
towards the door. A new sense of humiliation arose--how could I go
out at the door before miss Lesley?--I stood irresolute; she drew
back. The elder brother of my friend Augustus assisted me in this
perplexity; pushing us all forward, as if in a playful mood, he drove
us indiscriminately before him, saying, "I will make one among you
to-day." He had never joined in our sports before.

My luckless Play, that sad instance of my duplicity, was never once
mentioned to me afterwards, not even by any one of the children who
had acted in it, and I must also tell you how considerate an old lady
was at the time about our dresses. As soon as she perceived things
growing very serious, she hastily stripped off the upper garments we
wore to represent our different characters. I think I should have
died with shame, if the child had led me into the drawing-room in the
mummery I had worn to represent a nurse. This good lady was of another
essential service to me; for perceiving an irresolution in every one
how they should behave to us, which distressed me very much, she
contrived to place miss Lesley above me at table, and called her miss
Lesley, and me miss Withers; saying at the same time in a low voice,
but as if she meant I should hear her, "It is better these things
should be done at once, then they are over." My heart thanked her, for
I felt the truth of what she said.

My poor mother continued very ill for many weeks: no medicine would
remove the extreme dejection of spirits she laboured under. Sir
Edward sent for the clergyman of the parish to give her religious
consolation. Every day he came to visit her, and he would always take
miss Lesley and me into the room with him. I think, miss Villiers,
your father must be just such another man as Dr. Wheelding, our worthy
rector; just so I think he would have soothed the troubled conscience
of my repentant mother. How feelingly, how kindly he used to talk of
mercy and forgiveness!

My heart was softened by my own misfortunes, and the sight of my
penitent suffering mother. I felt that s