herself down in an easy-chair to listen to
extracts from a polite novel as rendered aloud, under dire compulsion,
by Mary Jane.

The rain had ceased by this, and the wind abated, though it still howled
around the angle of the house and whipped a spray of the monthly-rose
bush on the quarrels of the window, filling the pauses during which
Mary Jane wrestled with a hard word. Ruby herself had taught the girl
this accomplishment--rare enough at the time--and Mary Jane handled it
gingerly, beginning each sentence in a whisper, as if awed by her own
intrepidity, and ending each in a kind of gratulatory cheer. The work
was of that class of epistolary fiction then in vogue, and the extract
singularly well fitted to Ruby's mood.

"My dearest Wil-hel-mina," began Mary Jane, "racked with a hun-dred
conflicting em-otions, I resume the nar-rative of those fa-tal moments
which rapt me from your affec-tion-ate em-brace. Suffer me to re--to
re-cap--"

"Better spell it, Mary Jane."

"To r.e., re--c.a.p., cap, recap--i.t, it, re--capit--Lor'! what a
twister!--u, recapitu--l.a.t.e, late, re-cap-it-u-late the events
de-tailed in my last letter, full stop--there! if I han't read that full
stop out loud! Lord Bel-field, though an ad-ept in all the arts of
dis-sim-u-la-tion (and how of-ten do we not see these arts al-lied with
un-scru-pu-lous pas-sions?), was un-able to sus-tain the gaze of my
in-fu-ri-a-ted pa-pa, though he com-port-ed himself with suf-fic-ient
p.h.l.e.g.m--Lor'! what a funny word!"

Ruby yawned. It is true she had drawn the dimity curtains--all but a
couple of inches. Through this space she could see the folk busy on the
beach below like a swarm of small black insects, and continually
augmented by those who, having run off to snatch their Christmas dinner,
were returning to the spoil. Some lined the edge of the breakers,
waiting the moment to rush in for a cask or spar that the tide brought
within reach; others (among whom she seemed to descry Young Zeb) were
clambering out with grapnels along the western rocks; a third large
group was gathered in the very centre of the beach, and from the midst
of these a blue wreath of smoke began to curl up. At the same instant
she heard the gate click outside, and pulling the curtain wider, saw her
father trudging away down the lane.

Mary Jane, glancing up, and seeing her mistress crane forward with
curiosity, stole behind and peeped over her shoulder.

"I declare they'