fluence and culture, were not thought of, and she went to school
and had her companions and interests apart; while Mary, good soul,
filled up the vacancy with good works, and if once you get into the
swing of that sort of thing in town, there's no end to the demands
upon your time. I don't think she ever let them bore her husband.
He was out all day, and didn't want her; but I am afraid they do
bore her daughter, and absorb attention and time, so as to hinder
full companionship, till Cissy has grown up an extraneous creature,
not formed by her. Mary thinks, in her humility, dear old thing,
that it is a much superior creature; but I don't like it as well as
the old sort.

MR. A. The old barndoor hen hatched her eggs and bred up her chicks
better than the fine prize fowl. Eh?

E. So that incubator-hatched chicks, with a hot-bed instead of a
hovering wing and tender cluck-cluck, are the fashion! I was in
hopes that coming down to the old coop, with no professors to run
after, and you to lead them both, all would right itself, but it
seems my young lady wants more improving.

MR. A. Well, my dear, it must be mortifying to a clever girl to
have her studies cut short.

E. Certainly; but in my time we held that studies were subordinate
to duties; and that there were other kinds of improvement than in
model-drawing and all the rest of it.

MR. A. It will not be for long, and Cissy will find the people, or
has found them, and Mary will accept them.

E. If her native instinct objects, she will be cajoled or bullied
into seeing with Cissy's eyes.

MR. A. Well, Euphrasia, my dear, let us trust that people are the
best judges of their own affairs, and remember that the world has
got beyond us. Mary was always a sensible, right-minded girl, and I
cannot believe her as blind as you would make out.

E. At any rate, dear papa, you never have to say to her as to me,
'Judge not, that ye be not judged.'

IV. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER

SCENE.--DARKGLADE VICARAGE DRAWING-ROOM.

MRS. M. So, my dear, you think it impossible to be happy here?

C. Little Mamsey, why _WILL_ you never understand? It is not a
question of happiness, but of duty to myself.

MRS. M. And that is--

C. Not to throw away all my chances of self-improvement by
burrowing into this hole.

MRS. M. Oh, my dear, I don't like to hear you call it so.

C. Yes, I know you care for it. You were bred up here, and know
nothing better, poor old