picnics,
and dances, and plays. I like to live in a whirl, and stay in bed to
breakfast, and be waited on hand and foot. I don't say I _get_ it, but
it's what I would have if I could."

"Well, I'm a nice, good little maid who likes to help her mother and be
useful. When I go back I say to her, `Now don't worry any more, dear;
leave all to me,' and I run the house and make them all c-ringe before
me. Even the cook is afraid of me. She says I have such `masterful
ways.'"

The speaker was a tall, fair girl, with a very large pair of spectacles
perched on the bridge of an aquiline nose. She looked "masterful"
enough to frighten a dozen cooks, and made a striking contrast to the
next speaker, a mouse-like, pinched little creature, with an air of
conscious, though unwilling, virtue.

"I spent the last half of these holidays with a clergyman uncle, and
helped in the parish. I played the harmonium for the choir practice,
and kept the books for the Guilds and Societies. His daughter was ill,
and there was no one else to take her place, so, of course, I went at
once. It is quite a tiny little country place--Condleton, in
Loamshire."

"What!" cried Rhoda, and sat erect in her seat sparkling with animation.
"Condleton! I know it quite well. I often drive over there with my
ponies. It is only six miles from our place, and such a pretty drive.
I know the Vicarage quite well, and the Church, and the funny little
cross in the High Street!"

She spoke perfectly simply, and without thought of ostentation, for her
parents' riches had come when she herself was so young that she had no
remembrance of the little house in the manufacturing town, but looked as
a matter of course upon the luxuries with which she was surrounded. It
never occurred to her mind that any of her remarks could be looked upon
as boasting, but there was a universal glancing and smiling round the
room, and Thomasina enquired gravely:

"Do you drive the same pair every day?"

"Of ponies? Oh, yes, generally," replied Rhoda innocently. "They are
frisky little things, and need exercise. Of course if we go a very long
way, I give them a rest next day and drive the cobs, but as a rule they
go out regularly."

Thomasina shook her head in solemnest disapproval. "That's a mistake!
You should change _every_ day. The merciful man is merciful to his
beast. I can't endure to see people thoughtless in these matters. My
stud groom has special orders _neve