am really very happy. I should consider myself a most
wicked, discontented girl were I anything else. And, please, may I
take you to see mother?"

Merry brought up her new friend to introduce her to Mrs. Cardew, who
for the first moment, remembering what Lady Lysle had said, was a
trifle stiff to Maggie Howland, but two minutes afterward was chatting
to her in a pleasant and very friendly manner. She even went the
length of personally introducing Maggie to Lady Lysle, excusing
herself for the act by saying that Lady Lysle knew her mother.

Maggie also succeeded in charming Lady Lysle, who said to Mrs. Cardew
afterward, "I am glad you have introduced the girl to me. She is not
in the least like her commonplace, affected mother. She seems a very
good sort, and I like plain girls."

"But is she plain?" said Mrs. Cardew in some astonishment. "Do you
know, I never noticed it."

Lady Lysle laughed. "You never noticed how remarkably plain that girl
is, my dear friend?" she said.

"To be frank with you," said Mrs. Cardew, "I didn't think of her face
at all. She has a pretty manner and a nice, sensible, agreeable way of
talking. I do not think my girls can suffer injury from her."

"They seem to like her, at any rate," said Lady Lysle, looking
significantly as she spoke at the distant part of the grounds, where
Maggie, with Cicely at one side of her and Merry at the other, was
talking eagerly. "Oh yes, she seems a nice child," continued the great
lady, "and it would be unfair to judge a girl because her mother is
not to one's taste."

"But is there anything really objectionable in the mother?" asked Mrs.
Cardew.

"Nothing whatsoever, except that she is pushing, vulgar, and shallow.
I am under the impression that the Howlands are exceedingly poor. Of
course they are not to be blamed for that, but how the mother can
manage to send the girl to expensive schools puzzles me."

"Ah, well," said Mrs. Gardew in her gentle voice, "the child is
evidently very different from her mother, and I must respect the
mother for doing her best to get her girl well educated."

"Your girls are not going to school, are they, Sylvia?" asked Lady
Lysle.

"Mine? Of course not. Their father wouldn't hear of it."

"On the whole, I think he is right," said Lady Lysle, "though there
are advantages in schools. Now, that school at Kensington, Aylmer
House, which my dear friend Mrs. Ward conducts with such skill and
marvelous dexterity, is a pla