le at her table in the evening. But she was
used to it, and too good a manager even to be called so. She liked to
see her husband enjoy himself in his good-natured, open-hearted way. The
change was good for Charles, and thus it did very well, and there were
few houses in the neighbourhood more popular than Hollywell.

The guests this evening were Maurice de Courcy, a wild young Irishman,
all noise and nonsense, a great favourite with his cousin, Mr.
Edmonstone; two Miss Harpers, daughters of the late clergyman,
good-natured, second-rate girls; Dr. Mayerne, Charles's kind old
physician, the friend and much-loved counsellor at Hollywell, and the
present vicar, Mr. Ross with his daughter Mary.

Mary Ross was the greatest friend that the Miss Edmonstones possessed,
though, she being five-and-twenty, they had not arrived at perceiving
that they were on the equal terms of youngladyhood.

She had lost her mother early, and had owed a great deal to the kindness
of Mrs. Edmonstone, as she grew up among her numerous elder brothers.
She had no girlhood; she was a boy till fourteen, and then a woman, and
she was scarcely altered since the epoch of that transition, the same
in likings, tastes, and duties. 'Papa' was all the world to her, and
pleasing him had much the same meaning now as then; her brothers were
like playfellows; her delights were still a lesson in Greek from papa, a
school-children's feast, a game at play, a new book. It was only a pity
other people did not stand still too. 'Papa,' indeed, had never grown
sensibly older since the year of her mother's death: but her brothers
were whiskered men, with all the cares of the world, and no holidays;
the school-girls went out to service, and were as a last year's brood to
an old hen; the very children she had fondled were young ladies, as old,
to all intents and purposes, as herself, and here were even Laura and
Amy Edmonstone fallen into that bad habit of growing up! though little
Amy had still much of the kitten in her composition, and could play
as well as Charlotte or Mary herself, when they had the garden to
themselves.

Mary took great pains to amuse Charles, always walking to see him in
the worst weather, when she thought other visitors likely to fall, and
chatting with him as if she was the idlest person in the world, though
the quantity she did at home and in the parish would be too amazing
to be recorded. Spirited and decided, without superfluous fears and
fine