ld come back
to Thornleigh at Christmas--if they should happen to spend their
Christmas there.

Milly looked up at her wonderingly as she said this.

'Is there any chance of our spending it elsewhere, Augusta?' she
asked.

Mrs. Darrell had persuaded her stepdaughter to use this familiar
Christian name, rather than the more formal mode of address.

'I don't know, my dear. Your papa has sometimes talked of a house in
town, or we might be abroad. I can only say that if we are at home
here, we shall be very much pleased to see Miss Crofton again.'

I thanked her, kissed Milly once more, and so departed--to be driven
to the station in state in the barouche, and to look sadly back at
the noble old house in which I had been so happy.

Once more I returned to the dryasdust routine of Albury Lodge, and
rang the changes upon history and geography, chronology and English
grammar, physical science and the elements of botany, until my weary
head ached and my heart grew sick. And when I came to be a
governess, it would of course be the same thing over and over again,
on a smaller scale. And this was to be my future, without hope of
change or respite, until I grew an old woman worn-out with the
drudgery of tuition!

CHAPTER V.

MILLY'S LETTER.

The half-year wore itself slowly away. There were no incidents to
mark the time, no change except the slow changes of the seasons; and
my only pleasures were letters from home or from Emily Darrell.

Of the home letters I will not speak--they could have no interest
except for myself; but Milly's are links in the story of a life. She
wrote to me as freely as she had talked to me, pouring out all her
thoughts and fancies with that confiding frankness which was one of
the most charming attributes of her mind. For some time the letters
contained nothing that could be called news; but late in September
there came one which seemed to me to convey intelligence of some
importance.

'You will be grieved to hear, my darling Mary,' she wrote, after a
little playful discussion of my own affairs, 'that my stepmother and
I are no nearer anything like a real friendship than we were when
you left us. What it is that makes the gulf between us, I cannot
tell; but there is something, some hidden feeling in both our minds,
I think, which prevents our growing fond of each other. She is very
kind to me, so far as perfect non-interference with my doings, and a
gracious manner when we are toget