bout that school money, Betsey, as sure as a
gun. But just you look here: people think I'm soft because I come out
with my money for charities and that sort of thing; but they never made
a bigger mistake in their lives, if they think they can do just what
they like with me; so there now."

"That they never did, Bill," assented his sister.

"I look upon them schools as good as mine, and if there's to be a row
about this money, I mean to have a word in it, for I'm not a-going to
have that poor young lady sat upon by no one. I've hit the nail on the
head as sure as a gun, and if it isn't the old lady that's got her into
a scrape, you may call me a fool."

"Which I never would, Bill," said little Miss Burge emphatically; and
together they toddled back home.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

SOMETHING BY POST.

It was a most extraordinary thing, but, probably from uneasiness, Mrs
Thorne was the first down next morning. Hazel had had a sleepless
night, and it was not till six o'clock that she dropped off to sleep
heavily, and did not awaken till past eight, when, hot, feverish, and
with her head thick and throbbing, she hurriedly dressed herself and
went down.

Fate plays some strange tricks with us at times; and on this, the first
morning for months that Hazel had not received the letters herself, Mrs
Thorne was there to take them.

"Three letters for Hazel," she said to herself. "Dear me, how strange!
Three letters, and all bearing the Plumton postmark!"

She changed the envelopes from hand to hand, and shuffled them in a
fidgety way, as if they were cards.

"I feel very much displeased, for Hazel has no right to be receiving
letters from gentlemen; and I am sure if Edward Geringer were here he
would thoroughly approve of the course I take. She shall not have these
letters at all. It is my duty as Hazel's mamma to suppress such
correspondence. Often and often have I said to her, `Hazel, my child,
under any circumstances never forget that you are a lady.'"

There was another close examination of the letters, and then Mrs Thorne
went on--

"No young lady in my time would have ventured upon a clandestine
correspondence with a gentleman; and now, to my horror as a mamma, I
wake to the fact that my daughter is corresponding with three gentlemen
at once. Oh, Hazel, Hazel, Hazel! it is a bitter discovery for me to
make that a child of mine has been deceiving me. I wonder who they can
be from."

Mrs Thorne laid t