to sleep with the newspaper; rushed round
the garden in the twilight to stretch her young limbs; tried to read a
little, dressed, dined with her father; finished what he had missed in
the paper, then offered him music, and was told 'if she pleased,' and
as she played she mused whether this was to be her life. It looked
very dull and desolate, and what was the good of it all? But there
were her mother's words, 'Love him!' How fulfil them? She could pity
him now, but oh! how could she love one from whom her whole nature
recoiled, when she thought of her mother's ruined life? Mr. Dutton too
had held her new duties up to her as capable of being ennobled. Noble!
To read aloud a sporting paper she did not want to understand, to be
ready to play at cards or billiards, to take that dawdling drive day by
day, to devote herself to the selfish exactions of burnt-out
dissipation. Was this noble? Her mother had done all this, and never
even felt it a cross, because of her great love. It must be Nuttie's
cross if it was her duty; but could the love and honour possibly come
though she tried to pray in faith?

CHAPTER XXV.

THE GIGGLING SCOTCH GIRL.

'For every Lamp that trembled here,
And faded in the night,
Behold a Star serene and clear
Smiles on me from the height.'--B. M.

Nuttie was not mistaken in supposing that this first day would be a
fair sample of her life, though, of course, after the first weeks of
mourning there were variations; and the return of the Rectory party
made a good deal of brightening, and relieved her from the necessity of
finding companionship and conversation for her father on more than half
her afternoons and evenings.

He required her, however, almost every forenoon, and depended on her
increasingly, so that all her arrangements had to be made with
reference to him. It was bondage, but not as galling in the fact as
she would have expected if it had been predicted to her a few months
previously. In the first place, Mr. Egremont never demanded of her
what was actually against her conscience, except occasionally giving up
a Sunday evensong to read the paper to him, and that only when he was
more unwell than usual. He was, after all, an English gentleman, and
did not ask his young daughter to read to him the books which her
mother had loathed. Moreover, Gregorio was on his good behaviour,
perfectly aware that there was a family combination against him, and
having even recei