CHAPTER I.
Si douce est la Marguerite .-- CHAUCER.
"Miss Winter, are you busy?
Do you want this afternoon?
Can you take a good long walk ?" "Ethel, my dear, how often have I told you of your impetuosity--you have forgotten." "Very well"-- with an impatient twist--"I beg your pardon.

Good-morning, Miss Winter," said a thin, lank, angular, sallow girl, just fifteen, trembling from head to foot with restrained eagerness, as she tried to curb her tone into the requisite civility.
"Good-morning, Ethel, good-morning, Flora," said the prim, middle-aged daily governess, taking off her bonnet, and arranging the stiff little rolls of curl at the long, narrow looking-glass, the border of which distorted the countenance.
"Good-morning," properly responded Flora, a pretty, fair girl, nearly two years older than her sister.
"Will you--" began to burst from Etheldred's lips again, but was stifled by Miss Winter's inquiry, "Is your mamma pretty well to-day ?" "Oh! very well," said both at once; "she is coming to the reading." And Flora added, "Papa is going to drive her out to-day." "I am very glad.

And the baby ?" "I do believe she does it on purpose!" whispered Ethel to herself, wriggling fearfully on the wide window-seat on which she had precipitated herself, and kicking at the bar of the table, by which manifestation she of course succeeded in deferring her hopes, by a reproof which caused her to draw herself into a rigid, melancholy attitude, a sort of penance of decorum, but a rapid motion of the eyelids, a tendency to crack the joints of the fingers, and an unquietness at the ends of her shoes, betraying the restlessness of the digits therein contained.
It was such a room as is often to be found in old country town houses, the two large windows looking out on a broad old-fashioned street, through heavy framework, and panes of glass scratched with various names and initials.

The walls were painted blue, the skirting almost a third of the height, and so wide at the top as to form a narrow shelf.

The fireplace, constructed in the days when fires were made to give as little heat as possible, was ornamented with blue and white Dutch tiles bearing marvellous representations of Scripture history, and was protected by a very tall green guard; the chairs were much of the same date, solid and heavy, the seats in faded carpet-work, but there was a sprinkling of lesser ones and of stools; a piano; a globe; a large table in the middle of the room, with three desks on it; a small one, and a light cane chair by each window; and loaded book-cases.