rl in her position?" Mrs. Wilson's come-down
at this point was an example of a solemn warning to the elocutionist
who breaks out of bounds. She was obliged to fall back arbitrarily on
her key-note in the middle of the performance. "Have I said this to
you, Mr. Wilson, or have I not?"

"Speaking from memory I should say _not_. Yes--certainly _not_. But
I can raise no reasonable objection to speaking to Laetitia, provided
I am at liberty to say what I like. I understand that to be part of
the bargain."

"If you mean," says the lady, whose temper had not been improved by the
first part of the speech; "if you mean that you consider yourself at
liberty to encourage a rebellious daughter against her mother, I know
too well from old experience that that is the case. But I trust that
for once your right feeling will show you that it is your _plain duty_
to tell her that the course she is pursuing can only lead to the loss
of her position in society, and probably to poverty and unhappiness."

"I can tell her you think so, of course," says the Professor, drily.

"I will say no more"--very freezingly. "You know as well as I do what
it is your _duty_ to say to your daughter. What you will _decide_
to say, I do _not_ know." And premonitory rustles end in a move to
the door.

"You can tell her to come in now--if you like." The Professor won't
show too vivid an interest. It isn't as if the matter related to a
Scythian war-chariot, or a gold ornament from a prehistoric tomb, or
_variae lectiones_.

"At least, Septimus," says the apex of the departing skirts, "you will
remember what is due to yourself and your family--_I_ am nobody--so far
as not to encourage the girl in resisting her mother's authority." And,
receiving no reply, departs, and is heard on the landing rejecting
insufficient reasons why the drugget will not lay flat. And presently
issuing a mandate to an upper landing:

"Your father wishes to speak to you in his library. _I_ wish you to
go." The last words not to seem to abdicate as Queen Consort.

Laetitia isn't a girl whom we find new charms in after making her
mother's acquaintance. You know how some young people would be passable
enough if it were not for a lurid light thrown upon their identity by
other members of their family. You know the sister you thought was a
beauty and dear, until you met her sister, who was gristly and a jade.
But it's a great shame in Tishy's case, because we do honestly believe
her