:--"Oh, my dear
Regie, fancy! Miss Blomfield is married. And to whom, do you think? Do
you remember the old gentleman who sent us the cinder-parcel? Well,
it's to him; and he is really a very jolly old man; and thinks there
is no one in the world like Miss Blomfield. He told her he had been
carefully observing her conduct in the affairs of daily life for eight
years. My dear Regie, _fancy_ waiting eight years for one's next door
neighbour, when one was quite old to begin with! You have no idea how
much younger and better she looks in a home of her own, and a handsome
silk dress. Can you fancy her always apologising for being so happy?
She thinks she has too much happiness, and is idle, and who knows
what. It makes me feel quite ill, Regie, for if she is idle, and has
too much happiness, what am I, and what have I had? Do you remember
the days when you proposed that we should be very religious? I am sure
it's the only way to be very happy: I mean happy _always_, and
_underneath_. Leo says the great mistake is being _too_ religious, and
that people ought to keep out of extremes, and not make themselves
ridiculous. But I think he's wrong. For it seems just to be all the
heap of people who are only a little religious who never get any good
out of it. It isn't enough to make them happy whatever happens, and
it's just enough to make them uncomfortable if they play cards on a
Sunday. I know I wish I were really good, like Miss Blomfield, and Mr.
Clerke, and Helen. * * *"

It was the year of Miss Blomfield's marriage that Ragged Robin's wife
died. We had all quite looked forward to the peace she would enjoy
when she was a widow, for it was known that delirium tremens was
surely shortening her husband's life. But she died before him. Her
children were wonderfully provided for. They were girls, and we had
them all at the Hall by turns in some sort of sub-kitchenmaid
capacity, from which they progressed to higher offices, and all became
first-class servants, and "did well."

"My dear," said Nurse Bundle, "there ain't no difficulty in finding
homes for gals that have been brought up to clean, and to do as
they're bid. It's folk as can't do a thing if you set it 'em, nor
take care of a thing if you gives it 'em, as there's no providing
for."

I almost shrink from recording the hardest, bitterest loss that those
changeful years of my school-life brought me--the death of Mr.
Andrewes. It was during my holidays, and yet I was not w