f himself he
found that he was gradually drawn to the drawing-room window. Here he
was seen by Mr William Forth Burge, who came out, seized and softened
him; and as the schoolmaster was marched in he felt decidedly better,
and began to think of condescending to live.

"May I give you some tea, Mr Chute?" said Mrs Canninge politely.

"If you please, ma'am," said Chute, who felt better still on noting that
young Mr George Canninge was not seated at Hazel Thorne's side.

"Let's see: we must find you a seat, Mr Chute," said Mr William Forth
Burge heartily, as he glanced round.

"There is room here, Mr Burge," said Hazel, moving a little farther
along the settee, and Mr Chute's ease was complete, for the tea he
drank was the most delicious he had ever tasted in his life, and he
could have gone on eating bread-and-butter for an hour.

He said very little, and Hazel Thorne had to make up for it by chatting
pleasantly about the proceedings, till a message came by one of the
boys, and Mr Chute was fetched away, leaving the new mistress to the
tender mercies of the young squire--at least that is how he put it; but
he felt as he told himself, quite a new man.

George Canninge came to Hazel's side as soon as Chute had gone, and
stood talking to her quietly, and in a way that would have satisfied the
most exacting; but he had been dealing with a sensitive plant. At first
she had seemed to rejoice in the warmth of his social sunshine, but Mrs
Canninge had metaphorically stretched forth a rude hand and touched her
leaves, with the result that they shrank and looked withered; and, try
as he would, he found her quiet, distant and constrained.

"But she can be different," he said to himself as at last Hazel rose,
and, crossing to Miss Burge, asked her permission to go.

"Oh lor', yes, my dear, go when you think best; for you must be terribly
tired."

Hazel assured her that she was greatly rested now, and bowing to Mrs
Canninge she left the room, without disturbing her mother, who was
holding Mr William Forth Burge with an eye, and recounting to him a
long, true, and particular account of her early life, the position she
had occupied, and the ages and dates of the various illnesses of all her
children, including also the fact that her son Percy was growing
wonderfully like what his father had been when she first met him at one
of the Lord Mayor's balls.

"And they do say," sighed Mrs Thorne, "that my daughter is growing
grea