's things and putting them in a drawer as she spoke.
"Who puts your things away at home?"

"Mamma," Beth answered laconically. "She says it's less trouble to do
things herself."

"Oh, but you must save your mother the trouble, dear," said Aunt Grace
Mary in a shocked tone.

"Well, I will next time--if I remember," Beth rejoined. "Come and burn
lavender."

For the next few days, which happened to be very fine, Beth revelled
out of doors. Everything was a wonder and a joy to her in this fertile
land, the trees especially, after the bleak, wild wastes to which she
had been accustomed in the one stormy corner of Ireland she knew.
Leaves and blossoms were just bursting out, and one day, wandering
alone in the grounds, she happened unawares upon an orchard in full
bloom, and fairly gasped, utterly overcome by the first shock of its
beauty. For a while she stood and gazed in silent awe at the white
froth of flowers on the pear-trees, the tinted almond blossom, and the
pink-tipped apple. She had never dreamed of such heavenly loveliness.
But enthusiasm succeeded to awe at last, and, in a wild burst of
delight, she suddenly threw her arms around a gnarled tree-trunk and
clasped it close.

There was a large piece of artificial water in the grounds, in which
were three green islands covered with trees and shrubs. Beth was
standing on the bank one morning in a contemplative mood, admiring the
water, and yearning for a boat to get to the islands, when round one
of them, unexpectedly, a white wonder of a swan came gliding towards
her in the sunshine.

"Oh, oh! Mildred! Mildred! Oh, the beautiful, beautiful thing!" she
cried. Mildred came running up.

"Why, Beth, you idiot," she exclaimed in derision, "it's only a swan.
I really thought it _was_ something."

"Is that a swan?" Beth said slowly; then, after a moment, she added,
in sorrowful reproach: "O Mildred! you had seen it and you never told
me."

Alas, poor Mildred! she had not seen it, and never would see it, in
Beth's sense of the word.

On wet days, when they had to be indoors, Aunt Grace Mary waylaid Beth
continually, and trotted her off somewhere out of Uncle James's way.
She would take her to her own room sometimes, a large, bright
apartment, spick-and-span like the rest of the house; and show her the
pictures--pastels and water-colours chiefly--with which it was stiffly
decorated.

"That was your uncle when he was a little boy," she said, pointing to
a pret