ood voice, and we had some delightful music in the evening."

By and by Sir Henry was the second cavalier, when they went to an
oratorio, and Meta's letter overflowed with the descriptions she had
heard from him of Italian church music. He always went to Rome for
Easter, and had been going as usual, this spring, but he lingered, and,
for once, remained in England, where he had only intended to spend a few
days on necessary business.

The Easter recess was not spent at the Grange, but at Lady Leonora's
pretty house in Surrey. She had invited the party in so pressing a
manner that Flora did not think it right to decline. Meta expressed some
disappointment at missing Easter among her school-children, but she
said a great deal about the primroses and the green corn-fields, and
nightingales--all which Ethel would have set down to her trick of
universal content, if it had not appeared that Sir Henry was there too,
and shared in all the delicious rides.

"What would Ethel say," wrote Flora, "to have our little Meta as Lady
of the Manor of Cocksmoor? He has begun to talk about Drydale, and there
are various suspicious circumstances that Lady Leonora marks with the
eyes of a discreet dowager. It was edifying to see how, from smiles, we
came to looks, and by and by to confidential talks, which have made her
entirely forgive me for having so many tall brothers. Poor dear old Mr.
Rivers! Lady Leonora owns that it was the best thing possible for that
sweet girl that he did not live any longer to keep her in seclusion; it
is so delightful to see her appreciated as she deserves, and with her
beauty and fortune, she might make any choice she pleases. In fact, I
believe Lady Leonora would like to look still higher for her, but this
would be mere ambition, and we should be far better satisfied with such
a connection as this, founded on mutual and increasing esteem, with a
man so well suited to her, and fixing her so close to us. You must not,
however, launch out into an ocean of possibilities, for the good aunt
has only infected me with the castle-building propensities of chaperons,
and Meta is perfectly unconscious, looking on him as too hopelessly
middle-aged, to entertain any such evil designs, avowing freely that
she likes him, and treating him very nearly as she does papa. It is
my business to keep 'our aunt,' who, between ourselves, has, below the
surface, the vulgarity of nature that high-breeding cannot eradicate,
from startlin