lped
me all through; but my Aunt Kezia did not seem at all vexed to hear it;
she only laughed, and said, "Good girl!"

"Isn't it horrid work?" said Cecilia, who sat next me, in a whisper.

"Oh no!" said I; "I rather like it."

She shrugged her shoulders in what Hatty calls a Frenchified way.
"Catch me at it!" she said.

"You can come to the kitchen and catch me at it, if you like," said I,
laughing. "But it is all as new to me as to you. Till a few months
ago, I lived with my grandmother in Carlisle, and she never let me do
anything of that sort."

"What was her name?" said Cecilia.

"Desborough," said I; "Mrs General Desborough."

"Oh, is Mrs Desborough your grandmother?" cried she. "I know Mrs
Charles Desborough so well."

"That is my Aunt Dorothea," said I. "Grandmamma is gone to live with my
Uncle Charles."

"How pleasant!" said Cecilia. "You are such a sweet little darling!"
and she squeezed my hand under the table.

I began to wonder if she meant it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"O Cary!" cried Cecilia the next morning, "do come here and tell me who
this is."

"Who what is?" said I, for I looked out of the window, and could see
nobody but Ephraim Hebblethwaite.

"Oh, that handsome young man coming up the drive," returned she.

"That?" I said. "Is he handsome? Why, 'tis but Ephraim
Hebblethwaite."

"Whom?" cried Cecilia, with one of her little shrieking laughs. "You
never mean to say that fine young man has such a horrid name as Ephraim
Hebblethwaite!"

Hatty had come to look over my shoulder.

"Well, I am afraid he has," said I.

"Just that exactly, my dear," returned Hatty, in her teasing way. "Poor
creature! He is sweet on Fanny."

"Is he?" asked Cecilia, in an interested tone. "Surely she will not
marry a man with such a name as that?"

"Well, if you wish to have my private opinion about it," said Hatty, in
her coolest, that is to say, her most provoking manner, "I rather--
think--she--will."

"I wouldn't do such a thing!" disdainfully cried Cecilia.

"Nobody asked you, my dear," was Hatty's answer. "I hope you would not,
unless you are prepared to provide another admirer for Fanny. They are
scarce in these parts."

"I cannot think how you can live up here in these uncivilised regions!"
cried Cecilia. "The country people are all just like bears--"

"Do they hug you so very hard?" said Hatty.

"They are so rough and