rench Royalist element, feeling ran particularly high. "Monsieur and
Madame went into deep mourning, as did also many of the elder girls.
Multitudes of the French nobility came thronging into Reading,
gathering about the Abbey, and some of them half living within its
walls." Our friend Mary, as a half-fledged young lady, saw a great deal
of these poor refugees, who had lost everything but their lives. They
seem, however, to have shown the true French courage and gaiety under
evil circumstances. There was much singing and playing under the trees;
and they helped the school-girls to get up some little French plays to
act at their breaking-up party. Mary took a part in the character of a
French abbess, but she tells us that "assuredly" her talents never lay
in the acting line, and very honestly adds: "I could never sufficiently
have forgotten myself as to have acted well."

Soon after Mary's finally leaving school her parents decided to put a
curate in charge of the Kidderminster living, and to return to "lovely
Stanford." This was a great relief to poor, shy Mrs. Butt, who had been
like a caged bird in Kidderminster; but the young people were not quite
sure if they liked the change. They had made many friends in the town
and its neighbourhood; and now that Mary was, as we say nowadays, "come
out," she had been taken to various balls and other diversions. They
soon, however, settled down again in the old home; and as there was a
large, delightful, and very friendly family at Stanford Court hard by,
they found plenty of variety and amusement even in the depths of the
country.

The young Butts went across very often to dine at the Court; and on
these occasions their hostess, Lady Winnington, got up little impromptu
dances, which they greatly enjoyed. "Often," Mary writes, "when we
dined at the Court she would send for the miller, who played the
violin, and set us all to dance. My brother was always the partner of
the eldest Miss Winnington, and as neither of them could tell one tune
from another or dance a single step, we generally marvelled how they
got on at all. The steward also, a great, big, and in our opinion most
supremely ugly man, generally fell to my sister's lot. Thus, we did
very well, and enjoyed ourselves in our own way. Sometimes the old
Welsh harper came, and then we had a more set dance, and some of the
ladies'-maids, and one or two of the upper men-servants, and the miller
himself, and Mr. Taylor of the Fa