he strange household demeaned itself
exactly as if things were going on in the most regular and ordinary
course. No wonder that spectators outside looked on with a wonder that
could scarcely find expression, and half exasperated, half admiring,
watched the astonishing life of the colonial girl.

Nobody watched it with half the amount of exasperation which concentrated
in the bosom of Dr Rider. He gazed and noted and observed everything
with a secret rage, indignation, and incredulity impossible to describe.
He could not believe it even when it went on before his very eyes.
Doctor though he was, and scientific, to a certain extent, Edward Rider
would have believed in witchcraft--in some philtre or potion acting upon
her mind, rather than in Nettie's voluntary folly. Was it folly? was it
heroism? was it simple necessity, as she herself called it? Nobody
could answer that question. The matter was as incomprehensible to Miss
Wodehouse as to Dr Rider, but not of such engrossing interest. Bessie
Christian, after all, grew tame in the Saxon composure of her beauty
before this brown, sparkling, self-willed, imperious creature. To see
her among her self-imposed domestic duties filled the doctor with a
smouldering wrath against all surrounding her, which any momentary spark
might set aflame.

CHAPTER VI.

Affairs went on in Carlingford with the usual commonplace pertinacity of
human affairs. Notable events happened but seldom in anybody's life, and
matters rolled back into their ordinary routine, or found a new routine
for themselves after the ordinary course of humanity. After the
extraordinary advent of Nettie and her strange household--after the
setting-out of that wonderful little establishment, with all the amazed
expectation it excited--it was strange to see how everything settled
down, and how calmly the framework of common life took in that exceptional
and half-miraculous picture. Lookers-on prophesied that it never could
last--that in the very nature of things some sudden crisis or collapse
must ensue, and the vain experiment prove a failure; but quiet nature
and steady time prevailed over these moralists and their prophecies. The
winter went on calmly day by day, and Nettie and her dependants became
legitimate portions of Carlingford society. People ceased to wonder
by degrees. Gradually the eyes of Carlingford grew accustomed to that
dainty tiny figure sweeping along, by mere impulse of cheerful will
and cea