nd scream, and stood up to let him pass. He
was about to rebuke her for doing such work at such an hour; but he saw
her flushed, panting, and evidently very tired, and his wrath was
averted. Hurrying on to the drawing-room, he found Isabel eagerly
writing. She looked up with a pretty smile of greeting; but he only
ran his hand through his already disordered hair, and exclaimed--

'Our stairs are like the Captain of Knockdunder's. You never know they
are cleaned, except by tumbling over the bucket and the maid.'

'Are they being done?' said Isabel, quietly. 'I suppose the maids were
busy this morning.'

'And Charlotte, too! She looks half dead. I thought Ellen was to do
such work, and ought to have done it in proper time.'

'Little Catharine is so fretful, that Ellen cannot be spared from the
nursery.'

'I suppose she might be, if you were not absorbed in that writing.'

'I had the children with me, while the servants were at dinner; but
Kitty was so troublesome, that I could not keep her. I am particularly
anxious to finish this.'

'Some people would think a sick child more engrossing than that--' He
had very nearly said trash, but he broke off short.

'There is nothing really the matter with her,' began Isabel,
composedly; but James did not wait to listen, and muttering, 'That girl
will be killed if she goes on,' he ran up to the nursery, whence he
already heard a sound of low fretting.

The child was sitting on the nurse's lap, with a hot red spot on one
cheek, teased and disturbed by the noises that the lesser ones were
constantly making, as one lay in her cot, and the other was carried
about by the girl. As he entered, she shrieked joyously, and stretched
out her arms, and Kitty was at once clinging, hugging round his neck.
Sending Ellen down to finish the stairs, he carried off the little
girl, fondling and talking to her, and happy in her perfect content.
But he did not go to the drawing-room. 'No, no, mamma must not be
interrupted,' he bitterly thought, as he carried her down to the
fireless study, hung his plaid round himself and her, and walked up and
down the room with her, amusing her till she fell into a slumber on his
shoulder.

Isabel could not at once resume her pen. Her even temper was for once
ruffled, and her bosom swelled at the thought that his reproach was
unjust; she was willing to do what was fitting, and he ought not to
expect her to be an absolute nursery-maid. Women must