awthorne would let her
children join the class. Could anything be more fortunate, not only
because of Pennie's deportment, but because it would give her a chance
of improving her acquaintance with the dean's daughters. It was the
very thing of all others to be wished.

Quite stirred and excited out of her usual retirement, Miss Unity
offered to lay the matter before Mrs Hawthorne in the course of a few
days, when she was going to stay at Easney. She felt sure, she said,
that it could be arranged; and she finally took her leave, feeling that
she had at last accomplished some part of her duty towards her
god-daughter, and much happier in her mind. This lasted until she
reached her own door-step, and then she began to shrink from what she
had undertaken to do. She had the deepest distrust of her own powers of
persuasion, and as she thought of it, it seemed very unlikely to her
that she should succeed in placing the subject in its proper light
before Mrs Hawthorne. Never in her whole life had she ventured or
wished to advise other people, or to see what was best for them. It was
a bold step. "I shall say the wrong thing and offend Mary, or set her
against it in some way," she said to herself. "It would have been
better to leave it in Mrs Merridew's hands."

She troubled herself with this during the days that remained before her
visit to Easney, and grew more anxious and desponding as time went on.
If the welfare of Pennie's whole life had depended on her joining the
dancing-class, poor Miss Unity could scarcely have made it of more
importance.

It was, therefore, in a very wrought-up state that she arrived at the
vicarage, determined to speak to Mrs Hawthorne that very same day, for
until it was over she felt she should not have a moment's comfort. She
had brooded over it so constantly, and held so many imaginary
conversations about it, that she had become highly nervous, and was
odder in manner and more abrupt in speech than ever. As she sat at tea
with Mrs Hawthorne, she answered all her inquiries about Nearminster
strangely at random, for she was saying to herself over and over again,
"It is my duty; I must do it."

Suddenly the door was flung wide open, and Pennie threw herself hastily
into the room.

"Oh mother!" she cried, "will you lend me your india-rubber?"

Miss Unity set down her tea-cup with a nervous clatter as her
god-daughter advanced to greet her. Yes, Pennie certainly poked out her
chin