he passes the nursery door."

"You forget," said Titia, drawing herself up with a womanly air, "papa
will not be alone now. He may not care to come to you now he has got
Mrs. Grey."

"Mrs. Grey!"

"You know aunts told us always to call her so. I'm sure I don't want to
call her any thing. I hate her!"

"So do I," rejoined the boy, doubling up his fist with intense enjoyment.
"Wouldn't I like to pitch into her for marrying papa! But yet," with a
sudden compunction, "she gave us lots of cake. And she looked rather
jolly, eh?"

"Jolly! You boys are so vulgar," said the little lady, contemptuously.
"But I dare say you'll like her, for aunts say she is quite a vulgar person.
As for me, I don't mean to take any notice of her at all."

"A deal she'll care for that! Who minds you? you're only a girl."

"I'm glad I'm not a big, ugly, dirty-handed, common boy." Arthur's
reply was short and summary, administered by one of those dirty hands,
as he was in the habit of administering what he doubtless considered
justice to his much cleverer, more precocious, and very sharp-tongued
sister, even though she was "a girl." It was the only advantage he had
over her and he used it, chivalry not being a thing which comes natural
to most boys, and it, as well as the root and core of it, loving-kindness,
not having been one of the things taught in these children's nursery.

Letitia set up an outcry of injured innocence, upon which nurse, who
waited at the foot of the stairs, seeing something was amiss, while not
stopping to discover what it was, did as she always did under similar
circumstances--she flew to the contending parties and soundly thumped
them both.

"Get to bed, you naughty children; you're always quarreling," rang the
sharp voice, rising above Letitia's wail, and Arthur's storm of furious
sobs. The girl yielded, but the boy hung back; and it was not until after
a regular stand-up fight between him and the woman--a big, sturdy
woman too--that he was carried off, still desperately resisting, and
shouting that he would have his revenge as soon as ever papa came
home.

Letitia followed quietly enough, as if the scene were too common for
her to trouble herself much about it. The only other witness to it was
the portrait of the mild-faced foundress, which seemed through the
shadows of centuries to look down pitifully on these motherless
children, as if with a remembrance of her own two little sons, whose
sorrowfu