here,' exclaimed Mrs. Cartwright.
'If you're good enough to teach her--great, lazy thing that she is!--the
least she can do is to save you all the trouble she can.'

'I've got an idea,' observed Jessie. 'Why shouldn't we have lessons in
the garden?'

'That's just as bad. Emily 'll have the same distance to walk. Don't
hear of it, Emily; you make her come to Banbrigg!'

'I don't in the least mind the walk,' Emily said. 'Perhaps we might take
it in turns, one lesson in the garden and the next at Banbrigg.'

After ten minutes' vociferous discussion, during which Emily held her
peace, this plan was eventually agreed upon.

Jessie ran upstairs to prepare herself to go forth.

'Now don't you let her waste your time, Emily,' said Mrs. Cartwright, in
the girl's absence. 'If you see she's doing no good, just give it up. I
don't half like the thought of making you drudge in this way in your
holidays. I'm sure it's very kind of you to have offered to do it, and
it's certain she'll mind you more than she would any one else. She
doesn't care a scrap for all I say to her, though she knows well enough
it's as much as her father can do to keep things going at all. There
never was such bad times in _my_ recollection! How are things in London?
Did you hear much complaint?'

Emily found it hard to resist a smile at the thought of Mr. Athel or any
of those belonging to him indulging in complaints of this nature.

'And what sort of people are they you've got with this time?' the other
went on to ask. 'Do they treat you well?'

'Very well indeed.'

It would have been difficult for a stranger, comparing Emily, her tone
and bearing, with the members of the Cartwright family, to believe that
she came of the same class and had lived through her girlhood under
precisely similar conditions. So marked a difference could not but
impress even the Cartwrights themselves; the girls did not behave with
entire freedom in her presence, and influences to which they were
anything but readily susceptible were apparent in the tone they adopted
in addressing her. In spite of themselves, they bowed to a superiority
but vaguely understood. Jessie, perhaps, exhibited less of this
instinctive reverence than the others, although, in point of fact, her
endowments were decidedly above those of her sisters; the reason being,
no doubt, that acknowledged precedence in intellect had fostered in her
the worst kind of self-confidence. The girl was intolerably c