I could not understand what he meant.

It was a

very funny way to behave, I thought, but it did not trouble me much, for it was late and I was sleepy.

The next day you may be sure I plaited my hair up

tight enough.

"Ah, where is the maiden's hair?" Herr Kaufmann said when he came.

Tom laughed and squinted, and began to whisper something about lovely locks.

When papa came home in the evening, he, too, asked me what I had done with my hair.

"I like it the other way best, Mabel," he said. "You must wear it so to please me."

"But it is such an untidy way," said mamma; "the child will never be fit to be seen."

," said

"I think she will be much more 'fit to be seen,' my father, "and she will do it, I am sure, to please me." So, of course, I did; and I must say I was not sorry, for I did think myself it was much more becoming, though Tom never quite left off teasing me about lovely locks. But my father and Herr Kaufmann were both pleased, and I cared more to please them than other people.

THE following summer my sister Jane was married to Hugh Vaughan, and went to India, where he had a coffee plantation and where they settled down for the rest of their lives. Our cousin Laura came to be bridesmaid to Jane, and to pay us a long visit after the wedding. I had not thought much about this visit beforehand, for, as Laura was two years older than myself, I took it for granted she would be quite a grown-up young lady, and more a companion for mother than me.

But directly I saw my cousin I took an immense fancy to her. She was very pretty, beautiful I thought, and that alone was a great attraction to me. There was an indescribable fascination about her which made her a favourite with every one.

At first I was very shy with Laura, and looked upon her as a superior being, one to be admired but not

approached a bright beautiful creature of another sphere. I watched and listened to her at a respectful distance. It was such a surprise to me, that I could hardly believe it, when I found that Laura seemed to take it as a matter of course that she and I were to be constant companions; and that the attraction was mutual, -she had taken almost as much fancy to me as I had done to her.

Though I was the younger of the two, I was taller, and perhaps looked older; as I had by this time really taken to long dresses and collars and cuffs, which, by-theby, were a constant source of vexation to me--they would always get inky or crumpled or behave in some improper way.

I only studied with the Professor twice a week now, for my mother thought, as Jane was going, it was high time that I left the school-room altogether and began to make myself useful in the house.

This was a change I did not at all approve of, for I hated needle-work and all household employments, and I loved books and study. A new book was the greatest treat I could have. I used to run away with it, and hide in some corner, generally in my own attic or the school-room, and give myself up to enjoyment. In my silly little heart I despised all purely feminine occu

pations, and looked upon them as unworthy of an intellectual being.

So I thought it very hard, and I am afraid often looked very cross, when sometimes, as I had just settled down to a nice quiet morning with my books, I was called away to do some mending, or to help in some cooking, or do something else equally useful and in my estimation equally derogatory. In fact, I was selfish, and thought my own tastes and inclinations of much too vast importance. Herr Kaufmann was so proud of me as his pupil, and fond of me too, that he was blind to these faults, and perhaps rather fostered them. And I looked upon him as almost my beau ideal; though, had I really followed his example, I should have been a very different girl; for I suppose there never was a person more ready to give up his own fancies or pleasure if he thought the happiness of others required it.

So it was that my poor mother was often vexed with me, and no wonder. She was worried and overburdened, and if she had any particular tastes or fancies she certainly never had a spare moment to indulge them, and no doubt it was provoking to see a great strong girl like me spending all my time over writing and books, and helping so little in the daily tasks that must be got through. Perhaps then we each looked at life only from

our own point of view; afterwards, we learnt to understand each other better.

Then Laura came and roused me out of myself. My talks with her first made me look at life in a serious way -as something to be used, not merely enjoyed. And it gradually dawned upon me that I was selfish: that I made self my first object. It was a very new light to me, for in my secret heart I think I had looked upon myself as a very good sort of girl, if anything rather above the average, for I had been obedient to my parents, painstaking with my lessons, and good-natured to my brother and sister. But now I had grown quite out of childhood, and I was no longer told to do this and that, but was expected to find out my duties for myself, which was much more difficult-at any rate to me. It had seemed easy enough to Jane, who was naturally of a house-wifely, domestic turn, and had become her mother's right hand directly she left school.

But I was different. I should have been shocked at the idea of intentional selfishness, and yet I had slipped into a way of living solely for myself; and it was Laura who first made me see this-dimly enough. It was not that she lectured me-that was the very last thing she was inclined to do, but she was open and warm-hearted, and she told me a great deal about her own life and