and meat and pudding, every day, like Lily does ?" "Meat and pudding!" repeated the other, with a spasmodic attempt at a laugh; "poor people must learn to do without those things, my dear." "Do without them?" said Lily, opening her soft eyes in profound surprise. "Yes; if they can get bread, it's sometimes as much as they can manage, to say nothing of the butter," returned Peggy, moodily. "Never mind," cried Lily, starting briskly up, after a moment's pause, during which she had evidently been pondering deeply; you shall have some of my meat and pudding every day." As she said this she gazed into Peggy's face with such a pretty, bewitching smile, that the old woman was much moved, and it was in a tone of real feeling that she answered, "Bless you, my dear, I couldn't take it." Lily's face clouded; but in a few seconds the brightness returned to it, and she rushed over to Mary, and began to talk to her in a mysterious undertone. The latter appeared to remonstrate; but the child's earnestness overcame her at length, and she very reluctantly put her hand into her pocket and drew forth a little blue velvet purse, which Lily laughingly snatched from her, and opening it took out half a sovereign (all that it contained), and triumphantly handed it to Peggy, saying, artlessly-"It's all my own! ganpa gave it to me yesterday 'cause Polly lost one of her hats." "And what do you wish me to do with it?" queried Peggy, assuming a bewildered air as she turned the coin over in her hand. was "Buy some meat and pudding!" Lily's concise rejoinder. But Peggy resisted this proposal as firmly as she had done the first. It was in vain Lily protested that her doll had several other hats, and did not therefore require a new one; in vain she eagerly assured her that Mr. Faversham fully intended her to spend the money as she pleased her arguments and entreaties were of no avail in inducing the poor woman to appropriate any part of it to her own use. So at last Lily was fain to take it back again; but there was a very unwilling look upon her fair young face as she did it, and her lip quivered with vexation, until all at once it occurred to her to try another expedient. "I'll just yun and tell my ganpa 'bout it," she exclaimed, excitedly; "and then you'll be 'bliged to have it!" And before Peggy could utter a syllable in reply, she had started off in the direction of the Hall. "Well, I never!" soliloquised the old woman, as Mary hurried out of the house in pursuit of her young charge; "I wonder what's going to happen now! Surely the Squire can't blame me for this! and yet I don't know-he'll very probably say I must have brought it about myself; and perhaps he'll call me a 'confirmed grumbler,' as he did once before. Well, well; it can't be helped, I suppose." Having thus philosophically resigned herself to her fate, she proceeded with the task, in which she had been interrupted, of putting her room into something like order; for in her palmy days Peggy Morison had been remarkable for her extreme neatness; and even now, in spite of the disadvantages under which she laboured, she did her best to keep up the same character. CHAPTER XI. "Hearts there are oppressed and weary; From this perfect fountain-head: Freely, as thou freely givest, Shall the grateful light be shed." NOT a word passed between Lily and her attendant until they had reached the house and entered the hall, where they found Mr. Faversham anxiously awaiting their return. Lily sprang into his arms as soon as she saw him, and exclaimed, in a tone of childish petulance, "Oh, ganpa, she's a very naughty woman! Lily doesn't love her at all." "What has she been doing?" he inquired with a half smile (perhaps he was rather pleased than otherwise that the child should not think too highly of his troublesome tenant); "did she not admire your doll?" "Oh, yes," replied Lily, in a slightly |