the
shadow of a spreading apple-tree, suddenly entered amongst them,
and read her a lecture, gently, kindly, and judicious. Having thus
performed what he conceived his duty, he walked on; but his progress
was arrested by a little hand being thrust into his; and when he
looked down, the beaming, innocent face of Rose Dillon was up-turned
towards him.

"Do please, sir," she said, "let Helen Marsh be queen of the game;
if she is not, she won't play with a bit of heart--she won't, indeed,
sir. She will play to be sure, but not with any heart."

"I cannot unsay what I have said, little Rose," he answered; "I
cannot; it is better for her to play without heart, as you call it,
than to have that heart too highly uplifted by play."

Happy would it have been for Helen Marsh if she had always had a
judicious friend to correct her dangerous ambition. The good curate
admonished the one, and brought forward the other, of the cousins; but
what availed his occasional admonishing when counteracted by the weak
flattery of Mrs. Myles?

CHAPTER II.

Years passed; the lovely children, who tripped hand in hand down
the street of Abbeyweld, grew into ripe girlhood, and walked arm in
arm--the pride and admiration of every villager. The curate became at
last rector, and Mrs. Myles's absurdities increased with her years.
The perfect beauty of the cousins, both of face and form, rendered
them celebrated far and near. Each had a separate character as from
the first; and yet--but that Rose Dillon was a little shorter than
her cousin Helen Marsh, and that the _expression_ of her eyes was so
different that it was almost impossible to believe they were the
same shape and colour, the cousins might have been mistaken for each
other--I say _might_, because it is rather remarkable that they never
were. Helen's fine dark eyes had a lofty and forbidding aspect, while
Rose had not the power, if indeed she ever entertained the will, of
looking either the one or the other. I thought Rose the most graceful
of the two in her carriage, but there could be no doubt as to Helen's
being the most dignified; both girls were almost rustic in their
manners, but rusticity and vulgarity are very distinct in their
feelings and attributes. They _could not_ do or say aught that was
vulgar or at variance with the kindnesses of life--those tender
nothings which make up so large a something in the account of every
day's existence. Similar, withal, as the cousins