sauciness, though my cheeks are flaming. Then, half shyly, "Will
you not congratulate me?"

"No, I shall congratulate Carrington," replies he, shortly, and
after a few more words of the most commonplace description,
leaves us.

Mother is on her feet, and has assumed an important expression.
She has sent Billy in quest of Dora. Marmaduke crosses over to
her, whispers, and expostulates for a moment or two, until at
length mother sinks back again upon her seat with a resigned
smile, and sends Billy off a second time with a message to
Brewster to betake himself and the fossil back to Summerleas with
all possible speed. And so it comes to pass that when the lawns
are again empty Mr. Carrington drives us all, through the still
and dewy evening, to our home, where he remains to dine and spend
the rest of this eventful day.

It is a fortnight later, when the post coming in one morning
brings to Dora an invitation from our aunts, the Misses Vernon,
to go and stay with them for an indefinite period.

These two old ladies--named respectively Aunt Martha and Aunt
Priscilla--are maiden sisters of my father's, and are, if
possible, more disagreeable than he; so that there is hardly
anything--short of committing suicide--we would not do to avoid
paying them a visit of any lengthened duration.

Being rich, however, they are powerful, and we have been brought
up to understand how inadvisable it would be to offend or annoy
them in any way.

Dora receives and reads her letter with an unmoved countenance,
saying nothing either for or against the proposition it contains,
so that breakfast goes on smoothly. So does luncheon; but an hour
afterwards, as I happen to be passing through the hall, I hear
high words issuing from the library, with now and then between
them a disjointed sob, that I know proceeds from Dora.

An altercation is at all times unpleasant; but in our household

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