fashion and directory of English life and manners; but I saw they both
looked to me not only to make their home, but to tame their little wild
cat of a child; and that was enough to make her hate and distrust me.
Moreover, she had a gleam of jealousy not far from fierce in her wild
blue eyes if she saw Harold turn affectionately to me, and she always
protested sullenly against the "next week," when I was to begin her
education.

She could only read words of four letters, and could not, or would not,
work a stitch. Harold had done all her mending. On the second day I
passed by the open door of his room, and saw him at work on a great
rectangular rent in her frock. I could not help stopping to suggest
that Colman or I might save him that trouble, whereupon Dora slammed
the door in my face.

Harold opened it again at once, saying, "You ought to beg Aunt Lucy's
pardon;" and when no apology could be extracted from her, and with
thanks he handed over the little dress to me, she gave a shriek of
anger (she hardly ever shed tears) and snatched it from me again.

"Well, well," said Harold, patting her curly head; "I'll finish this
time, but not again, Dora. Next time, Aunt Lucy will be so good as to
see to it. After old Betty's eyes grew bad we had to do our own
needling."

I confess it was a wonderful performance--quite as neat as Colman could
have made it; and I suspect that Harold did not refrain from producing
needle and thread from his fat miscellaneous pocket-book, and repairing
her many disasters before they reached the domestic eye; for there was
a chronic feud between Dora and Colman, and the attempts of the latter
to make the child more like a young lady were passionately repelled,
though she would better endure those of a rough little under-housemaid,
whose civilisation was, I suppose, not quite so far removed from her
own.

On Sunday, she and Harold disappeared as soon as breakfast was over,
and only Eustace remained, spruce beyond all imagination, and giving
himself childlike credit for not being with them; but when at church I
can't say much for his behaviour. He stared unblushingly, whispered
remarks and inquiries, could not find the places in his book, and
appeared incapable of kneeling. Our little church at Arghouse was then
a chapelry, with merely Sunday morning service by a curate from
Mycening, and the congregation a village one, to the disgust of
Eustace, who had expected to review his neighbo