A CAMP OF THE RESERVE In consequence of letters exchanged during the week, next Sunday brought the three Miss Maddens to Queen's Road to lunch with Miss Barfoot.

Alice had recovered from her cold, but was still ailing, and took rather a gloomy view of the situation she had lately reviewed with such courage.

Virginia maintained her enthusiastic faith in Miss Nunn, and was prepared to reverence Miss Barfoot with hardly less fervour.
Both of them found it difficult to understand their young sister, who, in her letters, had betrayed distaste for the change of career proposed to her.

They were received with the utmost kindness, and all greatly enjoyed their afternoon, for not even Monica's prejudice against a house, which in her own mind she had stigmatized as 'an old-maid factory,' could resist the charm of the hostess.
Though Miss Barfoot had something less than a woman's average stature, the note of her presence was personal dignity.

She was handsome, and her carriage occasionally betrayed a consciousness of the fact.
According to circumstances, she bore herself as the lady of aristocratic tastes, as a genial woman of the world, or as a fervid prophetess of female emancipation, and each character was supported with a spontaneity, a good-natured confidence, which inspired liking and respect.