s
to ask if I were very tired, and then he left me to Mr. Tudor.

'Well, how do you like the folks up at Gladwyn?' demanded Mr. Tudor.
'Lady Betty was not in the best of humours to-night, and hardly deigned
to speak to me; but I am sure you must have admired Miss Hamilton.'

'I like both of them,' was my temperate reply: 'you must not be hard on
poor little Lady Betty. Miss Darrell had been lecturing her, and that
made her cross.'

'So I supposed,' was the prompt answer. 'Well, what did you think of the
Dare-all,--as the vicar calls her sometimes? is she not like a pleasant
edition of Tupper's _Proverbial Philosophy_,--verbose and full of long
sentences? How many words did she coin to-night, do you think?'

There was a little scorn in the young man's voice. Miss Darrell was
evidently not a favourite in the vicarage, yet most people would have
called her elegant and well-mannered, and, if she had no beauty, she was
not bad-looking. She was so exceedingly well made up, and her style of
dress was so suitable to her face, that I was not surprised to hear
afterwards from Lady Betty that many people thought her cousin Etta
handsome. Now when Mr. Tudor made this spiteful little speech I felt
rather pleased, for my dislike to Miss Darrell had increased rather
than diminished by the evening's experiences; under her smooth speeches
there lurked an antagonistic spirit; something had prejudiced her against
me even at our first meeting; I was convinced that she did not like me,
and would not encourage my visit to Gladwyn. Mr. Tudor and I talked a
good deal about Lady Betty; he described her as most whimsical and
sound-hearted, half-child and half-woman, with a touch of the brownie;
her brother often called her Brownie, or little Nix, to tease her. She
was very fond of her sister, he went on to say, but there was not much
companionship between them. Miss Hamilton was very intellectual, and read
a good deal, and Lady Betty never read anything but novels; they all made
a pet of her,--even Mr. Hamilton, who was not much given to pets,--but
she was hardly an influence in the house.

'She has not backbone enough,' he finished, 'and the Dare-all rules them
all with a rod of iron--"cased in velvet."'

Uncle Max listened to all this in silence, and as they parted with me at
the gate of the White Cottage he only said 'Good-night, Ursula,' in a
depressed voice. He was evidently rather cast down about something;
perhaps Miss Hamilton's de