144 T^^^^ ^^<^/ Charlotte. 



" That's the table-cloth, and the black rocks are the 

 children's faces, and that's Miss Mullen." 



" Well, I'm very glad you never took any Sunday-school 

 feast ever /was at, if that's what you make them look like." 



" You don't mean to say you go to Sunday-school 

 feasts ? " 



" Yes, why wouldn't I ? I never missed one till this year ; 

 they're the grandest fun out ! " 



Christopher stared at her. He was not prepared for a re- 

 ligious aspect in Miss Mullen's remarkable young cousin. 



" Do you teach in Sunday-schools ? " He tried to keep 

 the incredulity out of his voice, but Francie caught the 

 tone. 



"You're very polite! I suppose you think I know 

 nothing at all, but I can tell you I could say down all the 

 judges of Israel, or the journeyings of St. Paul this minute, 

 and that's more than you could do ! " 



" By Jove, it is ! " answered Christopher, with another 

 laugh. "And is that what you talk about at school 

 feasts ? " 



Francie laid her head back on the cushion of her chair, 

 and looked at him from under her lowered eyelashes. 

 *' Wouldn't you like to know ? " she said. She suddenly 

 found that this evening she was not in the least afraid of 

 Mr. Dysart. There were some, notably Roddy Lambert, 

 who called him a prig, but she said to herself that she'd tell 

 him as soon as she saw him that Mr. Dysart was a very nice 

 young man, and not a bit stuck-up. 



*' Very much," Christopher replied, sticking his eye-glass 

 into his eye, *' that was why I asked." He really felt curious 

 to know more of this unwonted young creature, with her 

 ingenuous impudence and her lovely face. If anyone else 

 had said the things that she had said, he would have been 

 either bored or revolted, and it is possibly worth noting 

 that, concurrently with a nascent interest in Francie, he was 

 consciously surprised that he was neither bored nor revolted. 

 Perhaps it was the influence of the half-civilised northern 

 music that Pamela was playing, with its blood-stirring fresh- 

 ness, like the whistling wind of dawn, and its strange 

 snatches of winding sweetness, that woke some slumbering 

 part of him to a sense of her charm and youth. But Pamela 



