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told her to; and if, when they were dressed, they did not know where to find the breakfast-room, she would most likely be outside dusting or something, and she would show them.

"Bee," cried Leonora, the instant she had shut the door, "I hate her!"

Bee was a little bit surprised. "But she kissed us kind,” she said.

"Oh yes," said Leonora. "I don't mean Rachel. I mean Aunt Carly. I hate her."

So did Beatrice, with capital letters all through the word, just like Leonora, she was so certain about it. It is not to be supposed they knew what to hate meant, though. They were only feeling odd, and strange, and peculiar, and uncomfortable, and sad, and miserable, and unhappy, and put out, and so many other sorrowful and fearful things which came across them whilst they were going through their melancholy dressing, that Bee was forced by it all, not to cry, but to burst out laughing.

"Carly Charley, Sugar Barley," she cried. "That's what I shall call her, to make her savage!"

"And as she's Miss Brydie," said Leonora, trying, since she was the elder, to say something cleverer than Beatrice had said, "I shall say Brydie Friday, keep it tidy!"

They felt quite sure their aunt would be dreadfully aggravated; and they tried to think of something else to make it

more.

"Let us say," said Bee, "Dene, Dene, a Cornwall Queen!" "Yes," said Lee, " and Little, Little, Not a Tittle !"

They went on putting on their clothes, quite comforted; they did a certain amount of washing (and a very great deal of splashing!) with the warm water; and then it came to combing out their hair.

It was a dreadful trouble to Beatrice.

"Bother!" she said, giving a pull, and another pull, and after all sticking fast at a tangle. "Why are combs made so silly that they won't go through !"

Leonora's was going through nicely, because she was taking a little piece of her hair at a time, and was not in such a perverse bustle; so she was able to speak quite grandly to her impatient little sister. "Do what I do," she said. "This way."

E

Beatrice tried, and Beatrice succeeded very fairly; only, growing headstrong and "harum-scarum" again when she was going to hook on her hair-riband, she gave it such a tug she broke the end off to which the eye was sewn, so of course she couldn't hook it on at all.

"Oh glore!

Missie Lenore!"

was what Margo the maroon used to say, with her large eyes large opened, when anything absurd happened at Golden Edge; and that is what Bee said then, full of merriment.

"Haven't got another," she added. "I shall have to go

downstairs without!"

Yes, that was true; and it was no use for Leonora, however much older she might be, to think of any other plan. Because, even if the two together had known where Aunt Carly kept needle and thread up in that long bedroom,—if she did keep any there, they certainly did not know how to use it. With nursie, and with mamma, up at Golden Edge, they had never sewn anything on, or tucked anything up, or tacked anything in; they didn't know anything about a ruck and a pucker; and, very probably, if they had been asked, they would have said (as boys say) that the right way to get a button-hole is to slit one with a penknife wherever one is wanted, and that the right way to get rid of a torn place is to gather up the edges of it and tie them round tightly into a little knobble with a string.

"All right. Go down without," said Leonora. getting hooked, though; and now it's on nicely."

"Mine is

There only remained the frocks and the pinafores to be put on; there only remained the little prayers to be said; and then the little children went together to the door of their room, as the first step towards seeing their Aunt Carly.

"I hope Rachel will be there!" Bee whispered. “I—I— am afraid!"

Rachel was there. She was bustling about kindly with a duster; dusting door-ledges, and dusting skirting-tops, and flipping at the fine grooves of a large picture frame hanging on the staircase; she was doing this, over and over again, on purpose to have some excuse for being there when the children came out; and, going first, as soon as she saw them, she went

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"And which of you is Leonora and which of you is Beatrice?" she asked, looking down like a big black cloud.-Page 68.

down some stairs that were smelling beautifully from a pot of lemon-scented verbena standing in a niche in the wall; and going across the hall, she opened a door, and stood back, that the children might go in.

Oh dear! The moment had come. Aunt Carly was there; and Aunt Carly was simply-awful. She was as tall as a man ; she was as dark, and as straight, and as thin, and as upright, as an iron column; she had a straight cape straight round her straight shoulders; she had straight cuffs at the end of her straight sleeves; she had a straight collar round her straight neck; and all over her head was a sort of muslin handkerchief, drawn tightly to it, and tied under her chin. All this would not have mattered; for perhaps she did have a cap somewhere that was like a cap, and perhaps she did have a dress somewhere that might have a scrap of trimming on it; only her face was long, and dark, and thin, and straight also, it had the severest look, quite a frown, and when she spoke, her voice seemed to threaten and frighten, so as to match her frown exactly.

"And which of you is Leonora ? and which of you is Beatrice?" she asked, looking down like a big black cloud.

Could they caper and dance, and tormentingly bring out, "Carly Charley, Sugar Barley," or "Brydie Friday, keep it Tidy," to that? No, indeed! They could only feel their hearts sink-sink-sink-right through the floor; they could only stand just where they had entered, Leonora stiff-still, and poor Bee folding her hands like a little criminal, her head bent down on to her chest, low.

"I-I-am Lee," faltered out Leonora; "and-and-that one is Bee."

"You are what? and she is what?" cried Miss Brydie, holding herself up, terribly grim.

Leonora scarcely knew what to say. It seemed so dreadful not to be known; to be asked if you were you, and not your sister; and then when you had said you were you and your sitser was the other, it seemed so dreadful to find you had said what hadn't said it, and you were asked again! Leonora would have liked to cry; the whole puzzle and muddle was so heavy on her. But she choked down her tears, and thought he would try another way.

"I am Leonora Casserly," she said; "and that is Beatrice Casserly."

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'Ah," cried Miss Brydie, "now I understand. But you are not to let me have any of that Lee-Bee business, or BeeLee business, whichever it was, here, remember. I consider it most important that children should learn to call things by their proper names. It teaches them accuracy. So you will be Leonora, if you please, whilst you are at Little Dene; and Beatrice will be Beatrice. And now you may kiss me." Ugh! Bee would have liked to have bitten her (she told Lee, afterwards); Lee would have liked to have run a needle into her (she told Bee, afterwards). Their Aunt Carly had a manner, however, which made everybody do what she told them, whether they liked it or not; the children accordingly approached her, she bent down to where they could reach, and the kisses were given.

"We shall go in to breakfast, now," said Miss Brydie. "We call this the dining-room, and you see no breakfast is laid here. It is always in that opposite parlour, which I call my morning-room. Come, now, for I daresay you are hungry."

CHAPTER VI.

HOW EVERYTHING GREW WORSE.

THE morning-room was right under the room in which the little girls had slept. They were sure of that, at once; because there, through the one window of it, was the stone balustrade, only nearer down, so that it could be seen that, behind it, there was another balustrade just like it, with stone steps, and a landing, from one to the other, in between. There, through the same one window, were the two stone vases, with their bright geraniums. There was the green bank, only it seemed such a very high green bank now, looked at from the ground. Lee and Bee could not see the top of it, and consequently could not see the laurels (or whatever shrubs they were) that were growing there. Cornwall, therefore, to these little Jamaica people, was not very large. They would not want a

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