owards
Mr and Mrs Chester. They were utterly free from affectation, and, so
far from apeing that indifference to wealth adopted by most _nouveaux
riches_, were so frankly, transparently enchanted with their new
possessions that they were more like a couple of children with a new toy
than a steady-going, middle-aged couple. They won first respect, and
then affection, and were felt to be a decided acquisition to the well-
being of the neighbourhood, since they were never appealed to in vain in
the cause of charity.

In the days of her own short means, when she had been obliged to look
helplessly at the trials of her neighbours, Mrs Chester had solaced
herself by dreaming of what she would do if she had money and to spare,
and to her credit be it said, she did not forget to put those dreams
into execution when the opportunity arose. The days are past when fairy
godmothers flash suddenly before our raptured eyes, clad in spangled
robes, with real, true wings growing out of their shoulders, but the
race is not dead; they appear sometimes as stout little women, in satin
gowns and be-feathered bonnets, and with the most prosaic of red,
beaming faces. The Chester barouche was not manufactured out of a
pumpkin, nor drawn by rats, but none the less had it spirited away many
a Cinderella to the longed-for ball, and, when the Prince was found, the
fairy godmother saw to it that there was no lack of satin gowns, or
glassy slippers. Dick Whittingtons, too, sitting friendless by the
roadside, were helped on to fortune; and the Sleeping Beauty was rescued
from her dull little home, and taken about to see the world. It is
wonderful what fairy deeds can be accomplished by a kind heart and a
full purse, and the recipients of Mrs Chester's bounty were relieved
from undue weight of obligation by the transparent evidence that her
enjoyment was even greater than their own!

Harold went to Eton and Oxford, and Jim to Sandhurst; but Rhoda stayed
at home and ruled supreme over her mother, her governesses, and the
servants of the establishment. Her great-uncle's wish had been
fulfilled, inasmuch as she grew up tall and straight, with a mane of
reddish-gold hair and more than an average share of good looks. She was
clever, too, and generous enough to have acknowledged her faults if it
had for one moment occurred to her that she possessed any; which it had
not. It was one of Mrs Chester's articles of faith that her daughter
was the most