’I don’t mind your calling me a clog, if only we were fastened together.’

‘But I do mind your calling me a donkey,’ he replied.

’I never did.  At least I did not mean to.  But it is such a comfort to know that I may be as rude as I like.’

’Is that what you’ve learnt from the grand company you’ve been keeping to-day?  I expected to find you so polite and ceremonious, that I read a few chapters of Sir Charles Grandison, in order to bring myself up to concert pitch.’

‘Oh, I do hope I shall never be a lord or a lady.’

’Well, to comfort you, I’ll tell you this.  I am sure you’ll never be a lord; and I think the chances are a thousand to one against your ever being the other, in the sense in which you mean.’

’I should lose myself every time I had to fetch my bonnet, or else get tired of long passages and great staircases long before I could go out walking.’

‘But you’d have your lady’s-maid, you know.’

’Do you know, papa, I think lady’s-maids are worse than ladies.  I should not mind being a housekeeper so much.’

’No! the jam-cupboards and dessert would lie very conveniently to one’s hand,’ replied her father, meditatively.  ’But Mrs. Brown tells me that the thought of the dinners often keeps her from sleeping; there’s that anxiety to be taken into consideration.  Still, in every condition of life there are heavy cares and responsibilities.’

‘Well!  I suppose so,’ said Molly, gravely.  ’I know Betty says I wear her life out with the green stains I get in my frocks from sitting in the cherry-tree.’

’And Miss Browning said she had fretted herself into a headache with thinking how they had left you behind.  I am afraid you’ll be as bad as a bill of fare to them to-night.  How did it all happen, goosey?’

’Oh, I went by myself to see the gardens; they are so beautiful! and I lost myself, and sate down to rest under a great tree; and Lady Cuxhaven and that Mrs. Kirkpatrick came; and Mrs. Kirkpatrick brought me some lunch, and then put me to sleep on her bed,—­and I thought she would waken me in time, and she did not; and so they’d all gone away; and when they planned for me to stop till to-morrow, I didn’t like saying how very, very much I wanted to go home,—­but I kept thinking how you would wonder where I was.’

‘Then it was rather a dismal day of pleasure, goosey, eh?’

’Not in the morning.  I shall never forget the morning in that garden.  But I was never so unhappy in all my life, as I have been all this long afternoon.’

Mr. Gibson thought it his duty to ride round by the Towers, and pay a visit of apology and thanks to the family, before they left for London.  He found them all on the wing, and no one was sufficiently at liberty to listen to his grateful civilities but Mrs. Kirkpatrick, who, although she was to accompany Lady Cuxhaven, and pay a visit to her former pupil, made leisure enough to receive Mr. Gibson, on behalf of the family; and assured him of her faithful remembrance of his great professional attention to her in former days in the most winning manner.