d
suffered,' as Miss Hoskins says."

"It's only centrifugal force," said Leslie, spinning round between her
finger and thumb a needle to whose head she had just touched a globule
of the bright black wax. "The world and a pin-head--both made on the
same principle."

The Haddens and Imogen Thoresby strolled along together, and added
themselves to the group.

"Let's go over to the hotel, Leslie. We've seen nothing of the girls
since just after breakfast. They must be up in the hall, arranging about
the tableaux."

"I'll come by and by, if you want me; don't wait. I'm going to finish
these--properly;" and she dipped and twirled another needle with dainty
precision, in the pause between her words.

"Have you got a lot of brothers at home, Miss Leslie?" asked Dakie
Thayne.

"Two," replied Leslie; "not at home, though, now; one at Exeter, and the
other at Cambridge. Why?"

"I was thinking it would be bad--what do you call it--political economy
or something, if you hadn't any, that's all."

"Mamma wants you," said Ginevra Thoresby, looking out at the door to
call her sisters. "She's in the Haughtleys' room. They're talking about
the wagon for Minster Rock to-night. What _do_ you take up your time
with that boy for?" she added, not inaudibly, as she and Imogen turned
away together.

"Oh dear!" cried blunt Etty, lingering, "I wonder if she meant me. I
want to hear about the caterpillars. Mamma thinks the Haughtleys are
such nice people, because they came in their own carriage, and they've
got such big trunks, and a saddle-horse, and elegant dressing-cases, and
ivory-backed brushes! I wish she didn't care so much about such things."

Mrs. Thoresby would have been shocked to hear her little daughter's
arrangement and version of her ideas. She had simply been kind to these
strangers on their arrival, in their own comfortable carriage, a few
days since; had stepped forward,--as somehow it seemed to devolve upon
her, with her dignified air and handsome gray curls, when she chose, to
do,--representing by a kind of tacit consent the household in general,
as somebody in every such sojourn usually will; had interested herself
about their rooms, which were near her own, and had reported of them,
privately, among other things noted in these first glimpses, that "they
had everything about them in the most _per_fect style; ivory-backed
brushes, and lovely inlaid dressing-cases, Ginevra; the best all
_through_, and no sham!" Yes,