of studios of cubes, globes, posts, etc., while Mr. Mauleverer talked artistically of drawing from models.  Next, he observed on a certain suspicious blackness of little Mary’s eye, and asked her what she had done to herself.  But the child hung her head, and Mrs. Rawlins answered for her, “Ah!  Mary is ashamed to tell:  but the gentleman will think nothing of it, my dear.  He knows that children will be children, and I cannot bear to check them, the dears.”

More briefly Mr. Mauleverer explained that Mary had fallen while playing on the stairs; and with this superficial inspection he must needs content himself, though on making inquiry at the principal shops, he convinced himself that neither Mr. Mauleverer nor the F. U. E. E. were as well known at St. Norbert’s as at Avonmouth.  He told Rachel of his expedition, and his interest in her work gratified her, though she would have preferred being his cicerone.  She assured him that he must have been very much pleased, especially with the matron.

“She is a handsome woman, and reminds me strongly of a face I saw in India.”

“There are some classes of beauty and character that have a remarkable sameness of feature,” began Rachel.

“Don’t push that theory, for your matron’s likeness was a very handsome Sepoy havildar whom we took at Lucknow, a capital soldier before the mutiny, and then an ineffable ruffian.”

“The mutiny was an infectious frenzy; so that you establish nothing against that cast of countenance.”

Never, indeed, was there more occasion for perseverance in Rachel’s championship.  Hitherto Mrs. Kelland had been nailed to her pillow by the exigencies of Lady Keith’s outfit, and she and her minions had toiled unremittingly, without a thought beyond their bobbins, but as soon as the postponed orders were in train, and the cash for the wedding veil and flounces had been transmitted, the good woman treated herself and her daughters to a holiday at St. Norbert’s, without intimating her intention to her patronesses; and the consequence was a formal complaint of her ungrateful and violent language to Mrs. Rawlins on being refused admission to the asylum without authority from Mr. Mauleverer or Miss Curtis.

Rachel, much displeased, went down charged with reproof and representation, but failed to produce the desired effect upon the aunt.

“It was not right,” Mrs. Kelland reiterated, “that the poor lone orphan should not see her that was as good as a mother, when she had no one else to look to.  They that kept her from her didn’t do it for no good end.”

“But, Mrs. Kelland, rules are rules.”

“Don’t tell me of no rules, Miss Rachel, as would cut a poor child off from her friends as her mother gave her to on her death-bed.  ‘Sally,’ says she, ’I know you will do a mother’s part by that poor little maid;’ and so I did till I was over persuaded to let her go to that there place.”