le Christopher, won't
you teach Grace Crawley? She never saw a Pope Joan board in her life
before."

"Come here, my dear, and sit next to me. Dear, dear, dear; fancy
Henry Grantly having a little girl. What a handsome lad he was. And
it seems only yesterday." If it was so that Lily had said a word to
her uncle about Grace and the major, the old squire had become on a
sudden very sly. Be that as it may, Grace Crawley thought that he was
a pleasant old man; and though, while talking to him about Edith, she
persisted in not learning to play Pope Joan, so that he could not
contrive that she should win, nevertheless the squire took to her
very kindly, and told her to come up with Lily and see him sometimes
while she was staying at the Small House. The squire in speaking of
his sister-in-law's cottage always called it the Small House.

"Only think of my winning," said Lady Julia, drawing together her
wealth. "Well, I'm sure I want it bad enough, for I don't at all know
whether I've got any income of my own. It's all John Eames's fault,
my dear, for he won't go and make those people settle it in Lincoln's
Inn Fields." Poor Lily, who was standing on the hearth-rug, touched
her mother's arm. She knew Johnny's name was lugged in with reference
to Lady Julia's money altogether for her benefit. "I wonder whether
she ever had a Johnny of her own," she said to her mother, "and if
so, whether she liked it when her friends sent the town-crier round
to talk about him."

"She means to be good-natured," said Mrs. Dale.

"Of course she does. But it is such a pity when people won't
understand."

"My uncle didn't bite you after all, Grace," said Lily to her friend
as they were going home at night, by the pathway which led from the
garden of one house to the garden of the other.

"I like Mr. Dale very much," said Grace. "He was very kind to me."

"There is some queer-looking animal of whom they say that he is
better than he looks, and I always think of that saying when I think
of my uncle."

"For shame, Lily," said her mother. "Your uncle, for his age, is as
good a looking a man as I know. And he always looks like just what he
is,--an English gentleman."

"I didn't mean to say a word against his dear old face and figure,
mamma; but his heart, and mind, and general disposition, as they come
out in experience and days of trial, are so much better than the
samples of them which he puts out on the counter for men and women
to judge b