ite cloth was spread a frugal meal of bread, butter, cheese,
and lettuce; a jug of milk, another of water, and a bottle of cowslip
wine; for the habits of the family were more than usually frugal and
abstemious.

Frugality and health alike obliged Major Delavie to observe a careful
regimen. He had served in all Marlborough's campaigns, and had
afterwards entered the Austrian army, and fought in the Turkish war,
until he had been disabled before Belgrade by a terrible wound, of which
he still felt the effects. Returning home with his wife, the daughter of
a Jacobite exile, he had become a kind of agent in managing the family
estate for his cousin the heiress, Lady Belamour, who allowed him
to live rent-free in this ruinous old Manor-house, the cradle of the
family.

This was all that Harriet and Aurelia knew. The latter had been born
at the Manor, and young girls, if not brought extremely forward, were
treated like children; but Elizabeth, the eldest of the family, who
could remember Vienna, was so much the companion and confidante of her
father, that she was more on the level of a mother than a sister to her
juniors.

"Then you think Aurelia's beau was really Sir Amyas Belamour," said
Harriet, as they sat down to supper.

"So it appears," said Betty, gravely.

"Do you think he will come hither, sister? I would give the world to see
him," continued Harriet.

"He said something of hoping for better acquaintance," softly put in
Aurelia.

"Oh, did he so?" cried Harriet. "For demure as you are, Miss Aura, I
fancy you looked a little above the diamond shoe-buckles!"

"Fie, Harriet!" exclaimed Betty; "I will not have the child tormented.
He ought to come and pay his respects to my father."

"Have you ever seen my Lady?" asked Aurelia.

"That have I, Miss Aurelia," interposed Corporal Palmer, "and a rare
piece of beauty she would be, if one could forget the saying 'handsome
is as handsome does.'"

"I never knew what she has done," said Aurelia.

"'Tis a long story," hastily said Betty, "too long to tell at table. I
must make haste to prepare the poultice for my father."

She quickly broke up the supper party, and the two younger sisters
repaired to their chamber, both conscious of having been repressed; the
one feeling injured, the other rebuked for forwardness and curiosity.
The three sisters shared one long low room with a large light closet
at each end. One of these was sacred to powder, the other was Betty'