h a comb behind, and on
Sundays to wear curled in front.)

"Shall I try and get you an Antwerp girl?" asked Mr. Moore, who, stern
in public, was on the whole very kind in private.

"Merci du cadeau!" was the answer. "An Antwerp girl would not stay here
ten days, sneered at as she would be by all the young coquines in your
factory;" then softening, "You are very good, dear brother--excuse my
petulance--but truly my domestic trials are severe, yet they are
probably my destiny; for I recollect that our revered mother experienced
similar sufferings, though she had the choice of all the best servants
in Antwerp. Domestics are in all countries a spoiled and unruly set."

Mr. Moore had also certain reminiscences about the trials of his revered
mother. A good mother she had been to him, and he honoured her memory;
but he recollected that she kept a hot kitchen of it in Antwerp, just as
his faithful sister did here in England. Thus, therefore, he let the
subject drop, and when the coffee-service was removed, proceeded to
console Hortense by fetching her music-book and guitar; and having
arranged the ribbon of the instrument round her neck with a quiet
fraternal kindness he knew to be all-powerful in soothing her most
ruffled moods, he asked her to give him some of their mother's favourite
songs.

Nothing refines like affection. Family jarring vulgarizes; family union
elevates. Hortense, pleased with her brother, and grateful to him,
looked, as she touched her guitar, almost graceful, almost handsome; her
everyday fretful look was gone for a moment, and was replaced by a
"sourire plein de bonte." She sang the songs he asked for, with feeling;
they reminded her of a parent to whom she had been truly attached; they
reminded her of her young days. She observed, too, that Caroline
listened with naive interest; this augmented her good-humour; and the
exclamation at the close of the song, "I wish I could sing and play like
Hortense!" achieved the business, and rendered her charming for the
evening.

It is true a little lecture to Caroline followed, on the vanity of
_wishing_ and the duty of _trying_. "As Rome," it was suggested, "had
not been built in a day, so neither had Mademoiselle Gerard Moore's
education been completed in a week, or by merely _wishing_ to be clever.
It was effort that had accomplished that great work. She was ever
remarkable for her perseverance, for her industry. Her masters had
remarked that it was as del