She seemed to read in the book, "O Ethel, you dunce, dunce, dunce!" She went home silent in the carriage, and burst into bitter tears on her bed.

Naturally a haughty girl of the highest spirit, resolute and imperious, this little visit to the parish school taught Ethel lessons more valuable than ever so much arithmetic and geography.

Clive has told me a story of her in her youth, which, perhaps, may apply to some others of the youthful female aristocracy.
She used to walk, with other select young ladies and gentlemen, their nurses and governesses, in a certain reserved plot of ground railed off from Hyde Park, whereof some of the lucky dwellers in the neighbourhood of Apsley House have a key.

In this garden, at the age of nine or thereabout, she had contracted an intimate friendship with the Lord Hercules O'Ryan .-- as every one of my gentle readers knows, one of the sons of the Marquis of Ballyshannon.

The Lord Hercules was a year younger than Miss Ethel Newcome, which may account for the passion which grew up between these young persons; it being a provision in nature that a boy always falls in love with a girl older than himself, or rather, perhaps, that a girl bestows her affections on a little boy, who submits to receive them.
One day Sir Brian Newcome announced his intention to go to Newcome that very morning, taking his family, and of course Ethel, with him.