the French call des bonnes façons is not being priggish and affected. Mother used to say the secret of des bonnes façons is unselfishness.'

All this was spoken rapidly and eagerly. Half of it was lost on Miss Ponsonby; all of it was as Greek to Miss Adelaide. She held her head on one side like one of her gold-coloured canaries, and a little indistinct murmur alone escaped her.

But Miss Ponsonby laid hold of that part of the speech which she could understand, and turned her serious, honest face full on Elfrida. In this house you will have to learn such manners as become your father's child, and in these I am competent to give you lessons.'

Then Miss Ponsonby rose, and Elfrida, pushing back her chair, stood to let her aunts pass her; then, as they crossed the little corridor to the drawingroom, Elfrida had mounted the stairs with three leaps, and gained her little room. She leaned out of the window gazing out into the summer twilight. Beyond the garden and the orchard she could see. the roof of the Vicarage and the spire of the church. Beyond that the ground rose in graceful, undulating curves towards the Court. For the first time in her life Elfrida realized the difference which her father's life would have made to her. She could but dimly remember him; but the eyes of the picture at the Court, with that serene, stedfast, yet smiling gaze, seemed to call him back from the shadows.

'If father had lived to be like that, and master of the Court and everything in it, then I should have

been happy. It is hard, it is very hard to think of another man in his place and his belongings there, while I am cast out and trampled on. I daresay when he comes home,-that man in the picture,—he too will try to lord it over me. Let him try! Yet he looks nice. I'll have another good stare at him next time I go to the Court; and the old Grannie is kind, I rather like her.' The sound of the gong broke in on her meditations. What is that for?' Elfrida thought again, as Bella knocked at the door. 'Prayers, Miss Elfreeda.'

'Say I'm tired, and gone to bed,' was the reply. 'I daren't, miss. Miss Ponsonby will be so angry.' 'No she won't; she has had enough of me to-day, I know.'

Away went Bella and delivered her message. Miss Ponsonby, who was seated in the drawing-room with a large Bible before her, fitted her glasses on her nose, and made no rejoinder to Bella's information.

It was the custom for Reuben and Bella to bear into the drawing-room between them, for evening prayers, a bench covered with green baize. Broome and his wife sat at either end, and the two young servants between them. The bench was placed at the end of the room, across the door. Miss Ponsonby had just finished the short lesson in her slow, sonorous tone, when a rush was heard, the door opened, and Elfrida had all but overturned the bench and those who were sitting on it, as she had by an awkward collision nearly upset Mr. Broome earlier in the day!

Miss Adelaide screamed and put her hand to her side, Bella giggled, and Reuben covered his face with his Bible; while Mrs. Broome uttered an exclamation which sounded like 'shameful,' and her lord and master was dumb with amazement.

'I-I beg your pardon, Aunt Dorothy,' said Elfrida, seating herself on a chair by the wall, 'but I thought '

'Silence, please! This is not the time for apology.' Then, after a momentary pause, Miss Ponsonby went on with the prayers, Bella and Reuben thankful for the opportunity of hiding their faces from observation.

When prayers were over, and the milk and biscuits brought in, for tea late in the evening kept the Miss Ponsonbys awake, Elfrida said, 'I came down to prayers because I had told the maid to say I was gone to bed. It was not true, and I hate to be deceitful. Good-night, Aunt

Dorothy.'

There is something noble in her after all,' Aunt Dorothy thought, if she can make an admission. like that.' But she only said, 'Good-night, Elfrida;' while Miss Adelaide, with her scent-bottle held to her nose, said, 'Good-night, my dear; the fright has' and before the sentence was finished Elfrida was gone.

'Well,' was Mrs. Broome's remark as she attended on her lady before leaving her for the night, 'if this is to be a sample of every day, your health nor nobody's patience will hold out. Talk of whirlwinds,

F

why, she is like fifty whirlwinds in a quiet home, and not twelve hours in it yet. I thought how it would be!'

'Things may improve,' said Miss Ponsonby, with a sigh and a yawn; and, calling her family pride to her help, and she is a Ponsonby!'

R

CHAPTER VII.

OCCUPATION.

AIN fell heavily the next morning, and tennis at the Vicarage was out of the question. It seemed a dreary outlook for every one at the Cottage. But Miss Ponsonby, considering occupation the grand panacea for all ills, thought of something which would keep Elfrida out of mischief.

'It's Adelaide's morning for taking a class at the school,' Miss Ponsonby began.

'What school? Can't I go to it?'

'The village school, my dear, for the children of the parish. I am sure you would like to do something, for idleness always makes the time seem long. So come with me into what we call the parishroom, and I will give you a nice easy little task.'

Elfrida, to whom all the details of English country life were entirely unfamiliar, followed her aunt to a room at the back of the house, within the crimson baize door which shut off the servants' quarters.