ith Lady
Markland----" said Theo, pale with passion.

"Oh," cried Minnie, "don't suppose I am going to speak about Lady Markland
to you. How can you be so infatuated, Theo? You a tutor,--you, that have
always been made such a fuss with, as if there was not such another in
the world! What was it all he was to be? A first class, and a Fellow,
and I don't know what. But tutor to a small boy, tutor to a little
lord,--a sort of a valet, or a sort of a nurse--"

"Minnie! your brother is at an age when he must choose for himself."

"How much are you to have for it?" she cried,--"how much a year? Or are
you to be paid with presents, or only with the credit of the connection?
Oh, I am glad poor papa is dead, not to hear of it. He would have known
what to think of it all. He would have given you his opinion of a
woman--of a woman----"

"Lady Markland is a very nice woman," said Chatty. "Oh, Theo, don't look
as if you were going to strike her! She doesn't know what she is saying.
She has lost her temper. It is just Minnie's way."

"Of a woman who wears no crape for her husband," cried Minnie, with an
effort, in her bass voice.

Theo, who had looked, indeed, as if he might have knocked his sister
down, here burst into an angry peal of laughter, which rang through the
house; and his mother, seizing the opportunity, took him by the arm and
drew him away. "Don't take any notice," she said. "You must not forget
she is your sister, whatever she says. And, my dear boy, though Minnie
exaggerates, she has reason on her side, from her point of view. No, I
don't think as she does, altogether; but, Theo, can't you understand
that it is a disappointment to us? We always made so sure you were going
to do some great thing."

"And to be of a little real use once in a way, is such a small thing!"

"Oh, Theo, you must be reasonable, and think a little. It does not want
a scholar like you to teach little Geoff."

"A scholar--like me. How do you know I am a scholar at all?"

Mrs. Warrender knew that no answer to this was necessary, and did not
attempt it. She went on: "And you are not in a position to want such
employment. Don't you see that everybody will begin to inquire what your
inducement was? A young man who has nothing, it is all quite natural;
but you--Theo, have you ever asked yourself how you are to be repaid?"

"You are as bad as Minnie, mother," he said, with scorn; "you think I
want to be repaid."

She clasped her hands upo