a desire on the valet's part to coax and court little Alwyn
of which she felt somewhat jealous. The boy was naturally the pet of
every one in the household, but he was much less out of Gregorio's
reach in the present confined quarters, and she could not bear to see
him lifted up in the valet's arms, allowed to play with his watch, held
to look at distant sails on board the yacht, or even fed with sweet
biscuits or chocolate creams.

The Rectory nursery had gone on a strict regimen and nurse was as angry
as Nuttie herself; but there was no preventing it, for his father was
not above cupboard love, and never resisted the entreaties that were
always excited by the sight of dainties, only laughing when Nuttie
remonstrated, or even saying, 'Never mind sister, Wynnie, she's got
Mrs. Teachem's cap on,' and making the child laugh by pretending to
smuggle in papers of sweets by stealth, apart from the severe eyes of
sister or nurse.

That cut Nuttie to the heart. To speak of the evils for which
self-indulgence was a preparation would only make her father sneer at
her for a second Hannah More. It was a language he did not understand;
and as to the physical unwholesomeness, he simply did not choose to
believe it. She almost wished Alwyn would for once be sick enough to
frighten him, but that never happened, nor would he accept nurse's
statement of the boy being out of order.

Poor little Alwyn, he was less and less of an unmixed joy to her as he
was growing out of the bounds of babyhood, and her notions of
discipline were thwarted by her father's unbounded indulgence. To her
the child was a living soul, to be trained for a responsible position
here and for the eternal world beyond; to her father he was a
delightful plaything, never to be vexed, whose very tempers were
amusing, especially when they teased the serious elder sister.

'Oh father! do you ever think what it will come to?' Nuttie could not
help saying one day when Mr. Egremont had prevented her from carrying
him off in disgrace to the nursery for tying the rolls up in dinner
napkins to enact Punch and Judy, in spite of his own endeavours to
prevent the consequent desolation of the preparations.

Mr. Egremont shrugged his shoulders, and only observed, 'An excuse for
a little home tyranny, eh? No, no, Wyn; we don't want tame little
muffs here.'

Nuttie was obliged to run out of the room and--it must be
confessed--dance and stamp out her agony of indignation an