I believe she would smile in that graceful way of hers--I
hate fine people!--and say nothing if you told her that her house was on
fire! The curate is always gadding about, and Minnie is a pretty girl;
so, of course, he likes to go there and see her; but, I know, that she
does not care twopence for him."

"Ah, you may say so, my dear; but _I_ know better. She would jump to
have him. All girls like handsome young clergymen, as I know to my
cost. Ah, Mr Lorton," went on Lady Dasher, with a sad expressive shake
of her head, "marriage is a sad lottery, a sad lottery! I once thought
of marrying into the church, too, when my poor dear papa was alive.
Perhaps it would have been a happier lot for me if I had done so! He
was such a dear, nice clergyman, and looked so well in his canonicals--
such a truly evangelical minister! I could listen to his sermons for
hours without feeling the slightest fatigue!"

"Thank goodness, then, he wasn't our papa!" exclaimed the saucy
Seraphine. "I'm certain that _I_ wouldn't have been able to listen to
his sermons so long!"

"Ah, my dear," groaned her mother at her levity, "always frivolous,
Seraphine! I'm afraid you will never marry a pious, holy man, as I
would wish!"

"Not if I know it, ma!" she retorted, so heartily that both her sister
Bessie and I--in spite of my anxiety about Min--could not but join in
her catching laughter. "No," continued the pert and impetuous young
lady, "when I enter the holy estate of matrimony I shall choose a gay
soldier laddie. None of your solemn-faced parsons for me! If they were
all like our good old vicar, whom I would take to-morrow if he asked me,
it would be quite a different thing; but they are not. They are all too
steady and starch and stiff now-a-days. They look as if butter would
not melt in their mouths!"

"Ah, my dear!" said her mother, "you will not think so by-and-by.
`Beggars mustn't be choosers.' You have got nothing but your face for
your fortune, you know, although it would have been very different if my
poor dear papa had been alive!"

"What, my face, ma?" said her dutiful daughter, "I'm sure I hope not!
Really, I'm very well satisfied with it;" and, getting up and going to
the mirror, she set about altering the riband in her hair, humming the
while the old ballad--

"`My face is my fortune, kind sir,' she said,
`Kind sir,' she said, `sir,' she said;
`My face is my fortune, kind sir,' she said."

I did not li