unger of whom capered round Anne in
high glee, though with a little shyness, sometimes looking upon her as
a stranger, sometimes recollecting former frolics, till Elizabeth
declared that it was time to dress; and Dorothea, the eldest, a quiet
and considerate little maiden of seven years old, carried off Winifred
and Edward to their own domains in the nursery.

Elizabeth's room had been set to rights for the accommodation of the
visitor, so that it suited most people's ideas of comfort better just
then, than in its usual state. A number of books and papers had been
cleared from the table, to leave it free for Anne's toilette apparatus,
and a heap of school girls' frocks and tippets, which had originally
been piled up on two chairs, but, daily increasing in number, had grown
top-heavy, fallen down and encumbered the floor, had that morning been
given away, so that there was at least room to sit down. Elizabeth's
desk and painting box were banished to the top of her chest-of-drawers,
where her looking-glass stood in a dark corner, being by no means
interesting to her. Near the window was her book-case, tolerably well
supplied with works both English and foreign, and its lower shelf
containing a double row of brown-paper covered volumes, and
many-coloured and much soiled little books, belonging to the lending
library. The walls were hung with Elizabeth's own works, for the most
part more useful than ornamental. There were genealogical and
chronological charts of Kings and Kaisars, comparisons of historical
characters, tables of Christian names and their derivations, botanical
lists, maps, and drawings--all in such confusion, that once, when Helen
attempted to find the Pope contemporary with Edward the First, she
asked Elizabeth why she had written the Pope down as Leo Nonus
Cardinal, on which she was informed, with a sufficient quantity of
laughter, that the word in question was the name of a flower, Leonurus
Cardiaca, looking like anything but what it was intended for in
Elizabeth's writing, and that Pope Martin the Fourth was to be found on
the other side of the Kings of France and Spain, and the portrait of
Charles the First. The chimney-piece was generally used as a place of
refuge for all small things which were in danger of being thrown away
if left loose on the table; but, often forgotten in their asylum, had
accumulated and formed a strange medley, which its mistress jealously
defended from all attacks of housem