be seen as part of the uniform of a Conservative charity school. As the father and child. walked down the aisle together the old men in white frocks nudged each other, remembering how Mr. Anthony used to walk hand-inhand with his little sister, when she was just such a rosebud of a child.

Sunday morning was good in Thomasina's eyes; but a fine Sunday afternoon was even more delightful, and in the happy memories of childhood life seems to have been all summer and sunshine. The straw bonnet was consigned to the bandbox, from which it only emerged on state occasions, and Thomasina was arrayed in a white sunbonnet of telescopic form, furnished with a deep flounce, which fell over her little bare shoulders by way of tippet, and she set out with Anthony and Sir Richard to make a tour of the Home Farm. Then she was perched on a pigsty wall to poke the ribs of the fatting pig with her grandfather's stick,

and she was set down in the poultry yard to clap her hands with pleasure, when she was mobbed by clamorous fowls, while she scattered barley with a lavish hand. They visited the stables, in order that her father might set her on the broad, sleek backs of the carthorses; and they went from the stables to the dairy, to skim rich cream off the dairy-pans, or leave the print of a dainty finger-nail in the soft new cheeses. Finally she fetched her glass mug from the nail where it always hung, and went herself to the milking-house, to watch the old dairyman as the new milk was frothed into it with a clear, ringing sound. Everything was done with that regard to law and precedent which is so dear to the heart of childhood, and her joy was not less pure because Sir Richard and her father looked on with loving eyes, declaring her to be the sweetest little maid on whom the sun had ever shined, and that she was born to be the flower of all the Bertrams.

CHAPTER II.

WHEN the younger Thomasina was nine years old, her military aunt and godmother came to stay at Bertram's Chase. Some years had elapsed since her gallant General was gathered to his fathers, and, although she was ever loyal to his memory, her intimate friends declared that the irritation of an unhealed wound had not conduced to domestic happiness, and that the hardships of a Peninsula campaign were slight compared with those which Mrs. Grey had endured in the two last years of her husband's life. ever that might be, her spirit was unbroken, and her eye was as bright, her step as brisk, as that of many a younger woman.

How

'Your aunt Thomasina is coming to-day,'

said Lady Bertram to the little girl; 'do not

get out of the way.'

Thomasina made an inarticulate reply, and presently accompanied her father on his morning visit to the stables. 'Yes, but I shall though,' she said rather inconsecutively, for Anthony was talking about his brown 'I very mare. I do not like Aunt Thomasina

much; she asks so many questions, and, when she kisses me, her chin scratches worse than grandfather's.'

'You ought to like her,' said Anthony; 'she is a good woman, and you know she is your godmother.'

She is like the ill-natured godmother in a fairy tale. Her black satin bonnet is exactly like one in the pictures to Mother Bunch. If she had a little girl I should like her, but there are old people enough here already.'

She had a little girl once, whose name was Thomasina. I remember her when she

was your age, and she lived with us for two whole years when your aunt was with her husband in the Peninsula.'

'Where she is now?' asked Thomasina.

'She is dead, my dear; she has been dead for years,' replied Anthony, not unwilling to linger for a while over the memory of his early love.

'However,' said Thomasina, after looking sad for a moment, if she was alive now, she would be old; I suppose nearly as old as you are?'

'Just as old as I am, Thomasina.'

'Then it does not so much signify. I do not mean that I am not sorry, the child resumed, with quick susceptibility to her father's change of countenance, 'only she would not have been of any use to play with.' 'Are you so dull, Thomasina?'

'Not exactly dull, only I think that children in story-books have more fun. Still I