help me to persuade Margery;" and
Mopsie vanished.

I said something about Frederick Tyrrell before, but I can hardly
describe how excessively slim, and elegant, and effeminate he looked to
me that day in particular. His dress and his manners amused me very
much. While staying with the Tyrrells one of my chief occupations had
been making fun of this young man, a fact of which I believe he was
blissfully unconscious. Perhaps experience had made him incredulous as
to the indifference any young lady might feel to his special favour; or
it might have been conceit; I will not pretend to decide which. But when
he drew near me, murmuring (shall I say lisping?), "Oh, do come; pray,
take pity on us--we have missed you so dreadfully," I am sure he thought
he did enough to make any reasonable young woman desire to leave
Hillsbro' on the instant.

But I did not want to leave Hillsbro', I felt a pang of keen pain at the
very suggestion; yet at the same moment an idea came into my mind that
it might be a good thing that I should leave it for a time. I hesitated,
asked Grace when she intended returning to London, and, while we were
parleying about the matter, Mopsie returned. During the remainder of the
visit the little girl listened earnestly to everything we said on the
subject, and when I parted from my friends at the gate, leaving it
undecided whether I should go with them to London or not, Mopsie burst
into tears and clung to my neck.

"Do not go with them," she said; "they cannot love you as we do."

"Mopsie, my pet," I said, "don't be a little goose. Neither do I love
them as I love you. If I go away for a time I will be sure to come
back."

Mopsie whispered her fears to Jane, and all that evening Jane kept aloof
from me. My head ached with trying to think of what I ought to do, and I
sat alone by the school-room hearth in the firelight considering my
difficulties, fighting against my wishes, and endeavouring in vain to
convince myself that I had no wishes at all. Mopsie came in and lay down
at my feet, with her face rolled up in my gown; and so busy was I that I
did not know she was crying. John came in and found her out. He took her
on his knee and stroked her as if she had been a kitten. Mopsie would
not be comforted. I felt guilty and said nothing. John looked from her
to me, wondering. At last Mopsie's news came out.

"Margery's grand London friends have been here, and they want to take
her away."

"What grand Lo