or remaining, he went away.

The Doctor fell into a reverie before his study fire presently, and
forgot the book upon his knee. He had the pleasant consciousness of an
uncongenial task conscientiously performed, and without its anticipated
unwelcome results being left behind. It was not an idea of his own
which had caused him to inquire among his patients for a suitable
situation for Alexia Boucheafen, but the hints, and then downright
urgings, of his friend Mrs. Leslie. Both she and Kate Merritt had seen
the governess, for in her kindness of heart the elder lady had paid
more than one visit to Laura's children. Mrs. Leslie had been
astonished at Alexia's beauty and stateliness, sympathetic and
questioning over her story, and, upon hearing that she was to remain in
the Doctor's house, had been amazed. A conventional-minded woman, with
all her kindness of heart, Mrs. Leslie had been shocked. Perhaps she
might not have been so had there been no scandalized and indignant
influence upon her own side; but Kate had been excessively voluble upon
this incipient fulfillment of her predictions, and had let her sister
have very little peace indeed. Finally, Mrs. Leslie had summed up the
whole case to the Doctor by assuring him that it would never do.

Well, it would have to do, he decided, when he roused himself
sufficiently to know what he had been thinking about. The girl should
stay if she preferred it, that was certain, in spite of all the
opinions in Christendom. He rather enjoyed this outrage upon the
proprieties, forgetful altogether that the same thought had been in his
own mind. He was glad to know that she was tranquil and safe. Nothing
more, consciously, yet.

CHAPTER V.

"Ma'm'selle, didn't you say we could go to the park again, if we were
good?" said Tom, looking up from a smeary attempt to get a simple
addition sum "to prove," and sucking his pencil doubtfully as he
surveyed the result.

"Don't want to go to the park; want to go to the shops an' spend my
shilling," exclaimed Floss, dropping a prodigious blot upon his copy of
capital "B's," and instantly smearing it over the page with his arm.

"S'all go to the park, I s'all! Wants to see the ducks, pour fings, an'
the nice man," cried Maggie, as usual completing the trio, and screwing
up her face over the mysteries of "a, b, ab."

"Can't we go, Ma'm'selle?" demanded Tom.

"Go where?" asked Alexia. She had been leaning against the
window-frame, stari