terest
in study was over. Thenceforth, lessons were a necessary form, gone
through without heart or diligence. These were reserved for paste-board
boxes, beplastered with rice and sealing-wax, for alum baskets, dressed
dolls, and every conceivable trumpery; and the governess was as eager as
the scholars.

If Ethel remonstrated, she hurt Miss Bracy's feelings, and this was a
very serious matter to both parties.

The governess was one of those morbidly sensitive people, who cannot
be stopped when once they have begun arguing that they are injured.
Two women together, each with the last-word instinct, have no power
to cease; and, when the words are spent in explaining--not in
scolding--conscience is not called in to silence them, and nothing but
dinner or a thunder-storm can check them. All Ethel's good sense was of
no avail; she could not stop Miss Bracy, and, though she might resolve
within herself that real kindness would be to make one reasonable reply,
and then quit the subject, yet, on each individual occasion, such a
measure would have seemed mere impatience and cruelty. She found that if
Miss Winter had been too dry, Miss Bracy went to the other extreme,
and demanded a manifestation of sympathy, and return to her passionate
attachment that perplexed Ethel's undemonstrative nature. Poor good Miss
Bracy, she little imagined how often she added to the worries of her
dear Miss Ethel, all for want of self-command.

Finally, as the lessons were less and less attended to, and the needs
of the stall became more urgent, Dr. May and Margaret concurred in a
decision, that it was better to yield to the mania, and give up the
studies till they could be pursued with a willing mind.

Ethel submitted, and only laughed with Norman at the display of
treasures, which the girls went over daily, like the "House that Jack
built," always starting from "the box that Mary made." Come when Dr. May
would into the drawing-room, there was always a line of penwipers laid
out on the floor, bags pendent to all the table-drawers, antimacassars
laid out everywhere.

Ethel hoped that the holidays would create a diversion, but Mary was too
old to be made into a boy, and Blanche drew Hector over to the feminine
party, setting him to gum, gild, and paste all the contrivances which,
in their hands, were mere feeble gimcracks, but which now became fairly
sound, or, at least, saleable.

The boys also constructed a beautiful little ship from a print