'Yes, I do, I do. Papa, that is an excellent plan -you must not change it."

"But I have changed it, and I want you to help me to find out how I came to be so foolish."

"Never mind that now.

and Mr. Lester have plotted."

Let me hear what you

Nothing very formidable. I have given up my intention of sending Charlie and Nesta to Morfa, and at Mr. Lester's and Lady Helen's joint request, I have promised that they shall accompany Lady Helen to her country house in Norfolk, and stay with her two months, while your mother prolongs her visit at Morfa."

"I wonder what makes Lady Helen and Mr. Lester wish this?"

"Mr. Lester is anxious to keep your mother at Morfa, and Lady Helen away, as long as his granddaughter's health requires that she should be humoured; he thinks your mother will be content to remain from home if her family is dispersed, and that Lady Helen will bear the solitude of Broadlands better if she has companions to amuse her. She professes to have taken a great liking to Nesta." "And Nesta has a sort of liking for her. I dare that she and Charlie will be happy at Broadlands.

say

I don't see why it should not prove a wise arrangement. You and I shall still be together. We will make the best of it, papa.'

"Thank you; but you suppose that you were forgotten. Lady Helen said she hoped that you would join your brother and sister at Broadlands after the school holidays began: she knew I could not spare my secretary in term time, she said."

"Did she suppose I would leave you alone in the house?"

"No, Mr. Lester invited me to spend my holiday at Morfa with your mother."

"To travel down to Wales alone?—what an idea! I would not let you," I exclaimed.

My father sighed gently; "Everybody does not watch me as closely as you do, Jenny; and you know what I feel about concealing one's infirmitiesI mean refraining from troubling one's neighbours with useless complaints about them. Perhaps you, and I, 'and George Armstrong, are the only people who quite understand how little I am to be trusted to take care of myself. Well, there is consolation in that thought, for before the day of total darkness comes, my practice in helping myself under difficulties will have prepared me for it."

"But you will not run needless risks?"

66

'No, and I agree that travelling alone would be

a needless risk. Since I can't afford to take these eyes with me," touching mine, "I will stay at home. Now, go to bed, dear child.”

I went, more full of my father's last words than of anything else he had told me. As I slowly mounted the stairs, a happy thought suggested itself to my mind.

We had been visiting Mrs. Wilton that evening, and she had entertained us with a long account of an accident that had befallen her son, a boy of ten years old, and with lamentations that, in consequence of it, he would be kept prisoner to the house during the rest of the half-year, and lose all the benefit of his school lessons. She wished very much, she said, that she could hear of a tutor or governess who would undertake to carry on her son's studies till the end of the term. The difficulty of the case seemed to be that Master Wilton had a will of his own, and his mother feared that while he continued too much out of health to attend the regular school classes, he would strongly object to receive instruction from any tutor she was likely to find for him.

Now the young gentleman and I chanced to be

firm friends. I had often helped him to prepare his lessons, and, girl though I was, I knew he had considerable respect for my scholarship. I had no fear but that we should get on well as teacher and pupil; and I felt sure that Mrs. Wilton would be delighted to have my help. Why should not I offer to act as Arthur Wilton's teacher till the end of the half-year, and so earn enough money to enable my father to take the journey to Scotland on which he had set his heart? Before I reached the top stair, my thought had become a fixed purpose, I had seen exactly how I should carry it out, and resolved that my father should know nothing of what I was doing till I was able to place the money I had earned in his hands. The thought made me so light-hearted that I was able to represent the new plans to Nesta under a much brighter aspect than I had seen them a few minutes before, and by dwelling long, and chiefly on the happiness which the success of my scheme would certainly bring me, I succeeded in reconciling her to the thought of leaving me alone at home while she went out into the world.

CHAPTER XIII.

"Tis the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call, Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall; Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts.”

mother

As soon as letters could be received from my and Charlie, my father had the comfort of finding that his plan received the fullest approbation from both.

My mother was glad that Nesta should enjoy the pleasures of a country visit, and Charlie hailed joyfully any arrangement that put off the evil day of explanation with my father. My own private scheme prospered too. Mrs. Wilton received my proposition gratefully, and my father gave me permission to spend my mornings during Nesta's absence at Mrs. Wilton's house, without troubling himself to ask any explanation of my request to do so.