bad--and to her also
his face was vaguely familiar. Could he belong to Beaminster?

As she sat and meditated, the tall spires of Beaminster Cathedral came
into sight, and a few minutes brought the carriage across the grey
stone bridge and down the principal street of the quaint old place which
called itself a city, but was really neither more nor less than a quiet
country town. Here Lady Caroline turned to her young guest with a
question--"You live in Gwynne Street, I believe, my dear?"

"Yes, at number ten, Gwynne Street," said Janetta, suddenly starting and
feeling a little uncomfortable. The coachman evidently knew the address
already, for at that moment he turned the horse's heads to the left, and
the carriage rolled down a narrow side-street, where the tall red brick
houses had a mean and shabby aspect, and seemed as if constructed to
keep out sun and air as much as possible.

Janetta always felt the closeness and the shabbiness a little when she
first came home, even from school, but when she came from Helmsley Court
they struck her with redoubled force. She had never thought before how
dull the street was, nor noticed that the railings were broken down in
front of the door with the brass-plate that bore her father's name, nor
that the window-curtains were torn and the windows sadly in need of
washing. The little flight of stone steps that led from the iron gate to
the door was also very dirty; and the servant girl, whose head appeared
against the area railings as the carriage drove up, was more untidy,
more unkempt, in appearance than ever Janetta could have expected. "We
can't be rich, but we might be _clean_!" she said to herself in a
subdued frenzy of impatience, as she fancied (quite unjustly) that she
saw a faint smile pass over Lady Caroline's delicate, impassive face. "No
wonder she thinks me an unfit friend for dear Margaret. But--oh, there
is my dear, darling father! Well, nobody can say anything against him at
any rate!" And Janetta's face beamed with sudden joy as she saw Mr.
Colwyn coming down the dirty steps to the ricketty little iron gate, and
Lady Caroline, who knew the surgeon by sight, nodded to him with
friendly condescension.

"How are you, Mr. Colwyn?" she said, graciously. "I have brought your
daughter home, you see, and I hope you will not scold her for what has
been _my_ daughter's fault--not your's."

"I am very glad to see Janetta, under any circumstances," said Mr.
Colwyn, gravely