ll," she said meekly, "I am of Mr. Longstaffe's opinion that
everything should be fully understood between us from the first. If we
all went on just the same, it might be very painful to Theo, when the
time came for him to marry (not now; of course there is no question of
that now), to feel that he could not do so without turning his mother
and sisters out-of-doors."

"Why should he marry, so long as he has us? It is not as if he had
nobody, and wanted some one to make him a home. What would he do with
the house if we were to leave it? Would he let it? I don't believe he
could let it. It would set everybody talking. Why should he turn his
mother and sisters out-of-doors? Oh, I never thought of anything so
dreadful!" cried Minnie and Chatty, one uttering one exclamation, and
another the other. They were very literal, and in the minds of both
the grievance was at once taken for granted. "Oh, I never could have
thought such a thing of Theo,--our own brother, and younger than we
are!"

The mother had made two or three ineffectual attempts to stem the tide
of indignation. "Theo is thinking of nothing of the kind," she said at
last, when they were out of breath. "I only say that he must not feel he
has but that alternative when the time comes, when he may wish--when it
may be expedient----No, no, he has never thought of such a thing. I only
say it for the sake of the future, to forestall after-complications."

"Oh, I wish you wouldn't frighten one, mamma! I thought you had heard
about some girl he had picked up at Oxford, or something. I thought we
should have to turn out, to leave the Warren--which would break my
heart."

"And mine too,--and mine too!" cried Chatty.

"Where we have always been so happy, with nothing to disturb us!"

"Oh, so happy! always the same, one day after another! It will be
different," said the younger sister, crying a little, "now that dear
papa---- But still no place ever can be like home."

And there was the guilty woman sitting by, listening to everything they
said; feeling how good, how natural, it was,--and still more natural,
still more seemly, for her, at her age, than for them at theirs,--yet
conscious that this house was a prison to her, and that of all things
in the world that which she wanted most was to be turned out and driven
away!

"My dears," she said, not daring to betray this feeling, "if I have
frightened you, I did not mean to do it. The house in Highcombe, you
know, is