your judgment. It is quite sad! We have to go to the Park for tennis, so I have put off dinner till half-past seven. The Clarkes stayed so long that really it is nearly half-past five. Nurse will come and take you out in your chair, Nina dear. Goodbye;' and the mother and her two eldest daughters bustled away.

Little Nina was left to herself and her own meditations, in which Elfrida played a conspicuous part. From that day forward Elfrida reigned supreme in one little tender heart, and the song sung for the child's sake won for the singer a romantic interest which did not fade away.

The drive homewards was rather flat; and Mrs. Clarke was a little flurried to meet Miss Ponsonby in her low carriage turning out of the gate of the Court.

'Where have they been taking Elfrida, I wonder?? Miss Ponsonby thought, as she returned Mrs. Clarke's oft-repeated bows with one stately inclination of the mushroom hat. 'I though she was to spend the afternoon with them at home. I must not encourage that intimacy.'

'What an old frump Miss Ponsonby looks in that big hat!' Leonora exclaimed. 'I can't think how she can make such a guy of herself!'

If Leonora expected this remark to bring a laughing response from Elfrida, she was mistaken. She took no notice of it; and the tightly-compressed lips showed anything but appreciation of Leonora's criticism of Miss Ponsonby's hat.

M

She

had been to the Court, as we know, and Grannie's advice was fresh in her mind,'Let the child feel that you wish to make her happy, and I know you will touch a spring of love in her. I have been talking to Mrs. Meredith about her, and I think that we have formed the same opinion of Elfrida. I would have her musical talent cultivated; let her have singing lessons, and provide for her practising as much as is necessary.

Thus all unconsciously Mrs. Ponsonby was furthering the views of Mrs. Clarke and Signor Montalozzi.

'Well, my dear,' Miss Ponsonby began, 'have you cnjoyed your afternoon?'

'Yes, pretty well,-some part of it. We drove to Maintree. Aunt Dorothy, I want to learn singing!'

'I must try and make arrangements for it; and I have been speaking to Mrs. Ponsonby about it to-day. I hardly approved of the Clarkes taking you into Maintree.'

'We went to see some people called Firth, who were having a singing lesson from a little black man.'

'A negro!' exclaimed Miss Adelaide. 'My dear, I never heard of such things; and yet, in Uncle Tom's Cabin, now I come to think of it, I believe the poor negroes did sing!'

Elfrida's peal of laughter made Miss Ponsonby say reprovingly, 'My dear! who do you mean by a little black man ?-not a negro?'

'I mean a little dark Italian, with curly black hair; his name is Signor Montalozzi, and he gives singing lessons in Maintree. Mrs. Clarke wants him to come over here once a week and teach me and Leonora. I hope you will let me learn, Aunt Dorothy?'

'You shall have lessons of some master or mistress, but I am not sure if it will be Signor Monta- I can't pronounce the name. I must make inquiries, and talk it over with your governess.'

Elfrida was obliged to rest content; but she said, 'May I use the piano here sometimes, Aunt Dorothy? If all those things are taken off, it will sound better; pianos ought never to have great heavy weights placed on them. Those old wax flowers are very ugly!'

They are beautiful!' Miss Adelaide exclaimed. 'I remember, when the yellow rose was first made by

poor Letitia Hardcastle, several people thought it was a real rose, and held their noses to it.'

'They must have been stupid!' Elfrida said; 'it is no more like a rose than a cabbage. I hate sham flowers!'

This rough speech threw Miss Ponsonby back again, and it was with a disappointed heart that she bid Elfrida good-night. She is unladylike and uncouth to a degree,' she thought. 'Mrs. Ponsonby may talk of a spring of love and affection, but it will never flow for me; and if there are to be these constant jars between her and Adelaide, my declining years will be made miserable. However, there is an alternative, and I can send her to school; better pay a hundred a year than sacrifice our home comfort in this way. I must give her a fair trial, and then decide.'

The fair trial was given, and the weeks and months passed on, and brought with them no very great change in Elfrida. Even Mrs. Meredith was baffled at times, and disappointed. Now and then a word or look would touch this high-spirited and wayward child, and she would be infinitely tender and loveable. But even before there was time to think that she was learning self-control and selfdiscipline, some rough words, or some wild outburst, would show that there was much left to conquer, and that Elfrida was still like a tangled skein, which, running smoothly off the hands for two or three rounds, suddenly comes to a knot or crossing of threads, which requires great pains and trouble to unravel.

In the schoolroom at the Vicarage things went tolerably well. The four girls felt the hand which was over them was very firm, though gentle. Susie Bruce pursued her even course, and plodded on, making up for dullness with dogged perseverance. A little obstinacy goes with this kind of disposition, and Mrs. Meredith was too wise to provoke a fit of it by any unreasonable demands.

Lily, bright and clever, floated up far beyond her sister in all matters requiring quickness of perception and instinctive grasp of any subject. She arrived at a conclusion with very little thought or trouble; but the examination papers set by Mrs. Meredith at Christmas, showed where Lily failed.

Daisy, with no pretension, and at a far slower pace, had gained a great deal more than her sister from their six months' study.

Elfrida was in her work what she was in her life, uncertain and variable. A creature of moods and impulse, it was curious to read over what she wrote, one question in a History paper, answered with wonderful brevity and entirely to the point, the next wandering from it, and confused, and hard to make sense of. Mrs. Meredith gave Mr. Huntingdon all the papers written by the four girls to read, and he was surprised at the great inequality which Elfrida showed.

Signor Montalozzi's terms for coming out to Maintree had so far exceeded Mrs. Clarke's ideas of what they would be, that the singing lessons had never yet come off; and now the Christmas