y face.'

'Pretty!' Dorothy screamed, 'Pretty! Nay, aunt, you cannot call that
baby-faced chit pretty. No air; no breeding; mere dairymaid's beauty. It
makes me laugh to think how proud she was of her fine gown and cap, which
only showed her awkward gait the more.' And Mistress Dorothy fingered her
Flemish lace and the string of beads round her short, thick neck, with
profound belief in her own charms.

If Lucy's beauty was that of a milkmaid, Dorothy's was decidedly of a
different character. Her complexion was sallow and pale; her hair, which
was by no means abundant, was of the sandy hue, which she tried to persuade
herself was like the Queen's. Her eyes were of a greenish colour, and
deeply set under a heavy forehead, and her figure was angular and
ungraceful.

Fine feathers do not always make a fine bird, and Dorothy Ratcliffe,
although with what in those days was considered to be a fortune at her
back, did not find fervent suitors for her favour. She was, therefore, very
ready to fall in with Mistress Ratcliffe's wishes, and take pains to
ingratiate herself with George, failing Humphrey, whose position as one of
Mr Sidney's esquires, made him the more desirable of the two brothers.

Dorothy Ratcliffe was the child of George's uncle, who was a recluse living
at Tunbridge. He was a scholar and a pedant, and concerned himself but
little about his only child, whose fortune was inherited from her mother.

Marriages in those days were generally settled for the people principally
concerned, with or without their consent, as it happened, and Master
Ratcliffe and George's mother had a sort of tacit understanding with each
other that Dorothy should take herself and her fortune to Hillbrow Place.

Dorothy was not unwilling to find herself mistress there, but she had
always a lingering hope that Humphrey would at last be a victim to her
charms, and then it would be easy to throw George over.

But things did not look very promising, and Dorothy asked, in an irritable
tone, before she parted with her aunt for the night,--

'Is Humphrey so taken up with the grand folk that he cannot find the time
to pay his dutiful respects to you, aunt?'

'He was here late the last evening,' Mistress Ratcliffe said, 'and is, with
George, anxious to furnish Mr Sidney with the pick of the horses in the
stable. Humphrey can scarce stir from Mr Sidney.'

'So it seems,' Dorothy said. 'Methinks, where there's a will there's a way;
but we sha