r. You have
returned to your native element, and you must let me return to mine.

MRS. M. Very well, my dear. Perhaps a year or two of study in town
may be due to you, though this is a great disappointment to
grandpapa and me. I know Mrs. Payne will make a pleasant and safe
home for you, if you must be boarded.

C. Too late for that. I always meant to be with Betty Thurston at
Mrs. Kaye's. In fact, I have written to engage my room. So there's
an end of it. Come, come, don't look vexed. It is better to make
an end of it at once. There are things that one must decide for
oneself.

V. TWO FRIENDS

SCENE--OVER THE FIRE IN MRS. KAYE'S BOARDING-HOUSE. CECILIA
MOLDWARP AND BETTY THURSTON.

C. So I settled the matter at once.

B. Quite right, too, Cis.

C. The dear woman was torn every way. Grandpapa and Aunt Phrasie
wanted her to pin me down into the native stodge; and Lucius, like a
true man, went in for subjection: so there was nothing for it but
to put my foot down. And though little mother might moan a little
to me, I knew she would stand up stoutly for me to all the rest, and
vindicate my liberty.

B. To keep you down there. Such a place is very well to breathe in
occasionally, like a whale; but as to living in them--

C. Just hear how they spend the day. First, 7.30, prayers in
church. The dear old man has hammered on at them these forty years,
with a congregation averaging 4 to 2.5.

B. You are surely not expected to attend at that primitive
Christian hour! Cruelty to animals!

C. If I don't, the absence of such an important unit hurts folks'
feelings, and I am driven to the fabrication of excuses. After
breakfast, whatever is available trots off to din the Catechism and
Genesis into the school-children's heads--the only things my
respected forefather cares about teaching them. Of course back
again to the children's lessons.

B. What children?

C. Didn't I explain? Three Indian orphans of my uncle's, turned
upon my grandfather--jolly little kids enough, as long as one hasn't
to teach them.

B. Are governesses unknown in those parts?

C. Too costly; and besides, my mother was designed by nature for a
nursery-governess. She has taught the two elder ones to be
wonderfully good when she is called off. 'The butcher, ma'am'; or,
'Mrs. Tyler wants to speak to you, ma'am'; or, 'Jane Cox is come for
a hospital paper, ma'am.' Then early dinner, of all things
detestab