unt of work she had undertaken in order to entertain the squire's
guests; but, even to his unobservant eyes, it was apparent that, so far
from being exhausted, she throve beneath it, and appeared brighter and
younger than for years past. All work and no play has an even more
depressing effect upon Jill than on Jack, and Mrs Thornton was by
instinct a hospitable creature, who would have loved nothing better than
a houseful of guests and a constant succession of entertainments. With
small means, a large family, and a straggling parish, her time and
energy were for the most part engrossed in sheer hard work, so that the
prospect of a little "jollification," as she laughingly expressed it,
came as a welcome variety.

The invitations to the Court were sent out first, to make sure of the
most important guests, and down came the girls with notes of acceptance,
and a hundred curious questions.

"Who is coming? What are you going to do? What dresses shall we wear?
Can we help?" they asked eagerly; whereupon Mrs Thornton laughed, and
replied hesitatingly--

"It is most incorrect; you ought to know nothing of the make-shifts, but
just drive down to enjoy the completed effect; but, yes,--I cannot
resist the pleasure of your company. Come, if you like, and I'll
promise you some real hard work."

"That's right; and you'll find us so useful! We have been born and
brought up on make-shifts, and can make anything out of nothing, and a
box of tacks--can't we, Ruth?" cried Mollie, in the brutally outspoken
manner which always brought a flush into her sister's face.

It was not so much foolish shame at the fact of poverty, but the stab of
painful repugnance which came with the remembrance of the bareness and
lack of beauty which characterised the old life. After a month's
sojourn at the Court the day of small things seemed far away, and she
shrank at the possibility of returning to it as a permanency.

When Mrs Thornton began to enumerate her difficulties, and escorted the
girls from one room to another to ask their advice upon various knotty
points, it was like the probing of a wound to Ruth's sensitive nerves.
The house itself was roomy and well built, but in a hopeless state of
disrepair. The paint was worn and dingy; the wallpapers so old-
fashioned and discoloured that all Mrs Thornton's painstaking efforts
after cheerfulness and beauty were foiled by the inartistic background.

"I shed tears over the drawing-room paper