pretty nose that I like him. What an absurd fool a
girl must be to like a man merely because he has a blue nose and hooked
eyes! So I am a fool, and I won't have you say a word to the contrary,
Theo!"

Now Theo thought that her little sister, far from being a fool, was
a wonder of wonders, and that if any girl was worthy of any prince in
Christendom, Hetty was that spinster. "You are silly sometimes, Hetty,"
says Theo, "that is when you speak unkindly to people who mean you well,
as you did to Mr. Warrington at tea to-night. When he proposed to us his
party at the Assembly Rooms, and nothing could be more gallant of him,
why did you say you didn't care for music, or dancing, or tea? You know
you love them all!"

"I said it merely to vex myself, Theo, and annoy myself, and whip
myself, as I deserve, child. And, besides, how can you expect such an
idiot as I am to say anything but idiotic things? Do you know, it
quite pleased me to see him angry. I thought, ah! now I have hurt his
feelings! Now he will say, Hetty Lambert is an odious little set-up,
sour-tempered vixen. And that will teach him, and you, and mamma, and
papa, at any rate, that I am not going to set my cap at Mr. Harry. No;
our papa is ten times as good as he is. I will stay by our papa, and if
he asked me to go to Virginia with him to-morrow, I wouldn't, Theo. My
sister is worth all the Virginians that ever were made since the world
began."

And here, I suppose, follow osculations between the sisters, and
mother's knock comes to the door, who has overheard their talk through
the wainscot, and calls out, "Children, 'tis time to go to sleep."
Theo's eyes close speedily, and she is at rest; but ob, poor little
Hetty! Think of the hours tolling one after another, and the child's
eyes wide open, as she lies tossing and wakeful with the anguish of the
new wound!

"It is a judgment upon me," she says, "for having thought and spoke
scornfully of him. Only, why should there be a judgment upon me? I was
only in fun. I knew I liked him very much all the time: but I thought
Theo liked him too, and I would give up anything for my darling Theo. If
she had, no tortures should ever have drawn a word from me--I would have
got a rope-ladder to help her to run away with Harry, that I would,
or fetched the clergyman to marry them. And then I would have retired
alone, and alone, and alone, and taken care of papa and mamma, and of
the poor in the village, and have read sermo