mong them or countenance them.'

'My dear child,'--and the colour rose--'I don't feel as if I had a
right to set myself above any one.'

'Mother!'

'People might have said just the same of me.'

'And whose fault was that?' muttered Nuttie under her breath, but Mrs.
Egremont would not hear. She only pleaded, as perhaps mother ought not
to have done with child.

'You know, Nuttie, it is not for my own pleasure, but your father's
eyesight makes him dislike to go anywhere without me now; and I really
should be uneasy about him.'

'Yes; he is all you care for,' said Nuttie. 'You sacrifice everything
you used to think essential, just to his will and pleasure.'

'Oh, Nuttie, I hope not; I don't think I do!'

'If I thought it was doing him any good I should not so much mind,'
went on the girl; 'but he is just the same, and I am always thinking of
"As the husband is, the wife is--"'

'Hush! hush! You have no right to think in that way of your father. I
will not hear it. I have let you say too much already, Nuttie.' Then
after a pause she added, gently and wistfully, 'You have been better
taught, and are clearer headed than ever I was, my Nuttie, and it is
quite right that you should hate what seems evil to you. I can only go
on trying to do what seems my duty from day to day. I know,' she added
with rising tears, 'that the sin and folly of my younger days worked a
difficult position for us both; but we can only act according to our
lights, and pray God to direct us; and please--please bear with me, my
dear one, if the same course does not always seem right to us both.'

Nuttie had never heard her say anything so fully showing that she
realised these difficulties, and, greatly touched, she asked pardon,
kissed and caressed her mother. There was a calm over them for the
next few days, and Nuttie actually refrained from bitter comments when
her mother was not allowed to go to evensong on Sunday, on the plea of
her being tired, but, as the girl believed, in order that she might
read the newspapers aloud.

She knew that her silence was appreciated by the way her mother kissed
her and called her a dear, good, considerate girl.

On Monday Mr. and Mrs. Egremont went away at what was a strangely early
hour for the former, Nuttie spending her days at the Rectory.

On the Tuesday Blanche went with her little sister and the governess on
a shopping expedition to Redcastle, and in relating her adventures on
her return,