much improved by her introduction to English society. Sometimes Mary
wrote for her father, and now and then was consulted; and she was
always grateful for whatever made her feel herself of use. She was on
kind and friendly terms with Rosita, but they did not become more
intimate than at first. The Senora was swinging in a hammock
half-asleep, with a cigarette between her lips, all the morning; and
when she emerged from this torpid state, in a splendid toilette, she
had too many more congenial friends often to need her step-daughter in
her visits, her expeditions to lotteries, and her calls on her old
friends the nuns. On a fast-day, or any other occasion that kept her
at home, she either arranged her jewels, discussed her dresses, or had
some lively chatter, which she called learning English. She coaxed,
fondled, and domineered prettily over Mr. Ponsonby; and he looked on
amused, gratified her caprices, caressed her, and seemed to regard her
as a pretty pet and plaything.

CHAPTER VI.

THE TWO PENDRAGONS.

The red dragon and the white,
Hard together gan they smite,
With mouth, paw, and tail,
Between hem was full hard batail.
The History of Merlin.

SPRING was on the borders of summer, when one afternoon, as Clara sat
writing a note in the drawing-room, she heard a tap at the door of the
little sitting-room, and springing to open it, she beheld a welcome
sight.

'Louis! How glad I am! Where do you come from?'

'Last from the station,' said Louis.

'What makes you knock at that door, now the drawing-room is alive?'

'I could not venture on an unceremonious invasion of Mrs. James Frost's
territory.'

'You'll find no distinction of territory here,' laughed Clara. 'It was
a fiction that we were to live in separate rooms, like naughty
children. Does not the drawing-room look nice?'

'As much improved as the inhabitant. Where are the other natives?'

'Granny and Isabel are walking, and will end by picking up Jem coming
out of school. We used to wait for him so often, that at last he said
we should be laughed at, so there's a law against it which no one dares
to transgress but granny.'

'So I conclude that you are a happy family.'

'After all, it was worth spending two years at school to enjoy properly
the having it over.'

'I give Jem credit for having secured a first-rate governess for you.'

'That she is! Why, with her I really do like reading and drawing all