pleased with impunity.

"There! here comes papa!" said Sophia; "and I do not believe we have
read nearly forty pages. Where did you begin, Margaret?"

Margaret resigned the volume to her to have the place found, and was
told that she should not have shifted the marker till the evening
reading was done, unless she at once set it forward forty pages: it made
it so difficult to find the place. Sophia was detained only five
minutes from her collar, however, before she discovered that they had
read only eight-and-twenty pages. Mrs Grey observed that Mr Grey was
coming in rather earlier than usual to-night; and Sophia added, that her
cousins had been a good while in their own room.

Hester was conscious that Mr Grey cast a rapid, penetrating glance upon
her as he drew his chair, and took his seat at her elbow.

"What a clever book this is!" said Mrs Grey.

"Very entertaining," added Sophia.

"What is your opinion of it?" asked Mr Grey of Hester.

She smiled, and said she must read more of it before she could judge.

"It is such a relief," said Mrs Grey, "to have a book like this in hand
after the tiresome things Mr Rowland orders in! He consults Mrs
Rowland's notions about books far too much; and she always takes a fancy
to the dullest. One would almost think it was on purpose."

Sydney liked the sport of knocking on the head charges against the
Rowlands. He showed, by a reference to the Society's list, that the
book just laid down was ordered by the Rowlands.

"Dear me! Sophia," said her mother, "you made quite a mistake. You
told us it was ordered in by Mr Hope. I am sure, I thought so all this
time."

"Well, I dare say we shall not be able to finish it," said Sophia. "We
have read only eight-and-twenty pages this evening. Papa! how
shockingly Mr Hope looks still, does not he? I think he looks worse
than when he was here last."

"And I trust he will look better when we see him next. I have the
strongest hopes that he will now gain ground every day."

"I am sure he seems to have gained very little yet."

"Oh, yes, he has; as I trust you will soon see."

Sophia was about to bewail Mr Hope's sickly looks again, when her
mother trod on her foot under the table; and, moreover, winked and
frowned in a very awful way, so that Sophia felt silenced, she could not
conceive for what reason. Not being able to think of anything else to
say, to cover her confusion, she discovered that it was bedtime,--at
l