will do for you! Yes, we had the porch deep for a
shelter--that is copied from the west door of the minster, and is it
not a fine high-pitched roof? John Taylor, who is to be clerk, could not
understand its being open; he said, when he saw the timbers, that a man
and his family might live up among them. They are noble oak beams; we
would not have any sham--here, Aubrey, take off the roof, and auntie
will see the shape."

"Like the ribs of a ship," explained Aubrey, unconscious that the
meaning was deeper than his sister could express, and he continued:
"Such fine oak beams! I rode with Dr. Spencer one day last year to
choose them. It is a two-aisled church, you see, that a third may be
added."

Ethel came up as Aubrey began to absorb the conversation. "Lessons,
Aubrey," she said. "So, Margaret, you are over your dear model?"

"Not forestalling you too much I hope, Ethel dear," said Margaret; "as
you will show her the church itself."

"You have the best right," said Ethel; "but come, Aubrey, we must not
dawdle."

"I will show you the stones I laid myself, Aunt Flora," said Aubrey,
running off without much reluctance.

"Ethel has him in excellent order," said Mrs. Arnott.

"That she has; she brings him on beautifully, and makes him enjoy it.
She teaches him arithmetic in some wonderful scientific way that nobody
can understand but Norman, and he not the details; but he says it is all
coming right, and will make him a capital mathematical scholar, though
he cannot add up pounds, shillings, and pence."

"I expected to be struck with Ethel," said Mrs. Arnott; "and--"

"Well," said Margaret, waiting.

"Yes, she does exceed my expectations. There is something curiously
winning in that quaint, quick, decisive manner of hers. There is so much
soul in the least thing she does, as if she could not be indifferent for
a moment."

"Exactly--exactly so," said Margaret, delighted. "It is really doing
everything with all her might. Little, simple, everyday matters did not
come naturally to her as to other people, and the having had to make
them duties has taught her to do them with that earnest manner, as
if there were a right and a wrong to her in each little mechanical
household office."

"Harry described her to me thus," said Mrs. Arnott, smiling: "'As to
Ethel, she is an odd fish; but Cocksmoor will make a woman of her after
all.'"

"Quite true!" cried Margaret. "I should not have thought Harry had so
much discern