LFRIDA was surprised to see Leonora Clarke waiting for her on the road, as she turned out of the Vicarage gates, -perhaps more surprised than pleased. 'I always come out for a run before luncheon, after my lessons; and it is so nice to meet you. Mamma is coming to call at the Cottage, and ask you to spend a day with us.'

'I can't do that, thank you!' said Elfrida rather coldly; 'I am to go to the Vicarage every day.'

'Oh, not on Saturdays; surely you will have a whole holiday then? Mamma has got a delicious plan: she is going to get Signor Montalozzi to come out here, and give me a lesson once a week, and you are to join us. Now, won't that be charming? Mamma told papa how few lessons I ever had.-how little I cost him for education, and he is coming round to the idea. He said it was a shame you should not have that lovely voice cultivated; and

you know two pupils would come to less than

one.'

'How do you know Signor Montalozzi is a good master?'

'Why, he teaches the Firths at Maintree, and Lord Henry Basingstoke's daughters, and heaps of people. It is quite the fashion to have him. Goodbye now, for I see little Miss Adelaide hopping up from the school with some books,-good-bye.' And then Leonora was gone.

Mrs. Pendleton Clarke did not make much way with her favourite scheme with Miss Ponsonby, and a somewhat reluctant permission was given for Elfrida to take tea with Mrs. Clarke's daughter on Saturday.

'I shall not ask the Huntingdons, or indeed any one,' Mrs. Clarke said, 'to meet your niece; so you may rest assured that she will not meet companions you might disapprove in my house.'

'I have such a respect for Dr. Clarke,' Miss Ponsonby said afterwards, 'that I did not like to refuse permission; but you will understand, Elfrida, I do not desire any intimacy between you and Miss Clarke. She is a superficial, second-rate girl; and were it not, as I said, that her father is a most excellent and worthy man, I should not have any intercourse with either mother or daughter.'

'I am sure I don't want to have much to do with Leonora,' Elfrida said; but before the end of the week she had a little changed her mind.

Sensitive people with deep-lying feelings, of which

they are perhaps hardly conscious themselves, are more or less affected by flattery.

Every day during the week Leonora managed to lie in wait for Elfrida, either on her way to or from the Vicarage; and her beaming smiles at the sight of her, and rapturous greetings, together with little insinuations that she could appreciate her, if no one else did, her voice-her figure-her eyes, and so forth,-began to take effect. Papa says, and papa admires so few people, that the moment he saw you at the Court, on the tennis lawn, you know, he said you looked like a princess,—such a contrast to little Susie Bruce, who is anything but aristocratic looking; she really might be anybody's daughter. Every one must see how superior you are.'

Sometimes, when these speeches got beyond the mark a little, Elfrida would draw back, and Leonora felt chilled and repelled, she hardly knew why.

'Of course,' she was saying one day, 'every one thinks you ought to be treated with real respect in these parts, for if you had been Mr. Ponsonby's son, instead of his daughter, you would have been Lord Maintree. Mamma and I think Lord Maintree ought to remember this.'

'What has he to do with it? How can he care about me, when he never saw me?'

'He would care if he saw you; but unfortunately he is never at home, and papa heard he would not be returning till the autumn next year. It is a great mistake, and so every one thinks, that he should wander about the world as he does.'

'I suppose he may please himself,' was the answer; and it is no one's business but his own.'

Saturday came, a bright summer day, and the first week of Mrs. Meredith's rule in the Vicarage schoolroom was over. C'est le premier pas qui coûte, she thought, as the difficulties she had to encounter passed in review before her. She had made a tolerably fair estimate of her four pupils by this time; but when Mrs. Huntingdon asked her to tell her honestly what she thought of the girls, especially of her own, she said, 'A week is too short a time to arrive at any very definite conclusion, Lilian. You must wait till you see what my work produces.'

'Are my children very backward?'

'Perhaps in routine, yes; but they have good abilities. Daisy I consider a very thoughtful and intelligent child.'

'But Lily is the cleverer of the two, surely?'

'She is the brighter and the quicker of the two, and naturally Daisy's deafness gives her the appearance of slowness; but there is depth in her. Lily may be all ripples, but perhaps the stream is rather shallow.'

'Susie is a good painstaking child, and thoroughly trustworthy, I think. And Elfrida? '—

Mrs. Meredith smiled. 'I cannot speak of her yet; she is so entirely unlike the ordinary run of girlhood. Her past is so different from that of the three others, her present so beset with difficulty. Sometimes I think of a high-bred Arab pony with

the bit in her mouth for the first time, restless and restive, and yet, though resenting the suspicion of force, yielding at once to a gentle word of command.'

'What a picture you draw of her. The children seem to think you have had a great deal of trouble with Elfrida, even in this week.'

'We do not tell tales out of school,' Mrs. Meredith said brightly. May we all walk to the Court to-day for Susie? and will you come with us?'

'May we?' Mrs. Huntingdon said, putting her arm caressingly within Mrs. Meredith's. My dear Ruth, I wish you to feel quite at home. I give you carte blanche for anything you wish to do with the children; and I am sorry I cannot come with you to the Court, but I must drive with Stephen to see a poor woman in the outlying district. Miss Ponsonby went there yesterday, and tells us she is dying, and wishes to receive the Holy Communion. So, though it is Saturday, and Stephen is always glad to be quiet on Saturdays, we must go.'

'Elfrida Ponsonby is not coming with us to the Court,' Mrs. Meredith said.

'Why not? I am sure her aunts would wish her to do so.'

'Apparently not; she is engaged to spend the afternoon with Leonora Clarke.'

'I am very sorry to hear it. I told Stephen that it was a mistake to invite that girl here last week; but he values the good doctor so highly, and says we must show the wife and daughter attention. I