ford, "but my acquaintance
with it does not extend beyond the recollection of a pretty-looking
drawing-room with French windows, and a lawn where I used to be allowed
to run about when I went with Grandmamma Langford to call on the old
Miss Drakes. I wonder your Uncle Roger does not take it, for those boys
can scarcely, I should think, be wedged into Sutton Leigh when they are
all at home."

"I wish some one else would take it," said Fred.

"Some one," added Henrietta, "who would like it of all things, and be
quite at home there."

"A person," proceeded the boy, "who likes Knight Sutton and its
inhabitants better than anything else."

"Only think," joined in the young lady, "how delightful it would be. I
can just fancy you, mamma, sitting out on this lawn you talk of, on a
summer's day, and nursing your pinks and carnations, and listening to
the nightingales, and Grandpapa and Grandmamma Langford, and Uncle
and Aunt Roger, and the cousins coming walking in at any time without
ringing at the door! And how nice to have Queen Bee and Uncle and Aunt
Geoffrey all the vacation!"

"Without feeling as if we were robbing Knight Sutton," said Mrs.
Langford. "Why, we should have you a regular little country maid,
Henrietta, riding shaggy ponies, and scrambling over hedges, as your
mamma did before you."

"And being as happy as a queen," said Henrietta; "and the poor people,
you know them all, don't you, mamma?"

"I know their names, but my generation must have nearly passed away. But
I should like you to see old Daniels the carpenter, whom the boys used
to work with, and who was so fond of them. And the old schoolmistress
in her spectacles. How she must be scandalized by the introduction of a
noun and a verb!"

"Who has been so cruel?" asked Fred. "Busy Bee, I suppose."

"Yes," said Henrietta, "she teaches away with all her might; but she
says she is afraid they will forget it all while she is in London, for
there is no one to keep it up. Now, I could do that nicely. How I should
like to be Queen Bee's deputy."

"But," said Fred, "how does Beatrice manage to make grandmamma endure
such novelties? I should think she would disdain them more than the old
mistress herself."

"Queen Bee's is not merely a nominal sovereignty," said Mrs. Langford.

"Besides," said Henrietta, "the new Clergyman approves of all that sort
of thing; he likes her to teach, and puts her in the way of it."

CHAPTER II.

From this ti