while you
pay your visit. You do not mean to take her there, and the servants
here will, I suppose, be put on board wages during your absence, so
that she need not remain in London."

"We hope and expect that Miss Melville will accompany us to Derbyshire,
that the children may go on with their lessons, and not get into as
much mischief as they did on their last visit," said Mr. Phillips.

"I am sure their aunts made great complaints of them," said Mrs.
Phillips, "and I do not wish to give room for so much complaint again.
I hope Miss Melville will come with us."

"I would have escorted Miss Melville to Edinburgh before I went to
Ashfield, for I must see that worthy Peggy again before I leave
England, and visit my Edinburgh relatives again, too, and my time is
getting short," said Mr. Brandon; "but if you cannot spare her, I
cannot do anything but go to see her sister, and report myself on her
appearance; perhaps your letters are duller than the reality."

"Did you not tell me your sister was a milliner, Miss Melville? What a
sad thing. I am sure you are such a treasure to us that I wish some
other family would take your sister," said Mrs. Phillips.

"She thinks millinery preferable to idleness; but the long hours, and
the cold rooms, and the solitary life are too hard upon her."

"It must be dull for her to have no other society but that of our good
Peggy and her bairns after a long day's work. Don't you think, Lily,
that it would be a pleasant change for her to come and spend a few
weeks with us after we return to London, as her sister cannot yet go to
her?" said Mr. Phillips.

The idea of befriending Jane's sister in this way was not disagreeable
to Mrs. Phillips. The invitation was given, and joyfully accepted. Mr.
Brandon would delay his visit to the north till it was about the time
for Elsie to come down, and would take care of her on the way.

Jane felt happy in this new proof of the kind feeling of the family
towards her, and accompanied them to Derbyshire with a lighter heart.

Mr. Phillip's father was a medical man, with an excellent country
practice, intelligent, chatty, and hospitable. He had married a Miss
Stanley, who was not only of very good birth, but who had a
considerable fortune, which was settled on her children. Her eldest
son's portion of it had been the nucleus of the handsome fortune he had
realised in Victoria. The old gentleman had been long a widower, and
his two unmarried daughters