Phoebe, Junior. Oliphant Margaret

don't care who sees me,” sobbed Janey. “You have been enjoying yourself while we have stayed at home, and instead of being pleased to come back, or glad to see us – Oh, how can you be so cold-hearted?” she said with a fresh burst of tears.

      Here the other side of the question suddenly dawned upon Ursula. She had been enjoying herself while the others stayed at home. It was quite true. Instead of feeling the shock of difference she should have thought of those who had never been so lucky as she was, who had never seen anything out of Carlingford. “Don't be so foolish, Janey,” she said, “I am glad; – and I have brought you such beautiful presents. But when you do nothing but laugh – ”

      “I am sure I didn't laugh to hurt. I only laughed for fun!” cried Janey, drying her eyes not without a little indignation; and thus peace was made, for indeed one was dying to tell all that happened, and the other dying to hear. They walked the rest of the way with their heads very close together, so absorbed that the eldest brother, coming out of the gate as they approached, stood looking at them with a smile on his face for some time before they saw him. A slight young man, not very tall, with dark hair, like Ursula's, and a somewhat anxious expression, in correct English clerical dress.

      “Has it all begun already?” he said, when they came close up to him, but without perceiving him, Ursula's face inspired with the pleasure of talking, as Janey's was with the eager delight of listening. The house was built in the ecclesiastical style, with gables and mullioned windows, which excluded the light, at least, whether or not they inspired passers-by with a sense of correct art, as they were intended to do. It was next door to the church, and had a narrow strip of shrubbery in front, planted with somewhat gloomy evergreens. The gate and door stood always open, except when Mr. May himself, coming or going, closed them momentarily, and it cannot be denied that there were outward and visible signs of a large, somewhat unruly family inside.

      “Oh, Reginald!” cried Ursula. “You have come home!”

      “Yes – for good,” he said with a half-laugh, half-sigh. “Or for bad – who can tell? At all events, here I am.”

      “Why should it be for bad?” cried Janey, whose voice was always audible half-way up the street. “Oh, Ursula, something very nice has happened. He is to be warden of the old college, fancy! That is being provided for, papa says; and a beautiful old house.”

      “Warden of the old college! I thought it was always some old person who was chosen.”

      “But papa says he can live at home and let the house,” cried Janey. “There is no reason why it should be an old gentleman, papa thinks; it is nice, because there is no work – but look at Reginald, he does not like it a bit; he is never satisfied, I am sure, I wish it was me – ”

      “Come in,” said Reginald hastily, “I don't want all my affairs, and my character besides, to be proclaimed from the house-tops.” Janey stopped indignant, to make some reply, and Ursula, grasping her arm, as she feared, with an energetic pinch, went in quickly. Little Amy had been playing in the little square hall, which was strewed with doll's clothes, and with two or three dolls in various stages of dilapidation. Some old, ragged school-books lay in a corner, the leaves out of one of which were blowing about in the wind. Even ten days of Anne Dorset's orderly reign had opened Ursula's eyes to these imperfections.

      “Oh, what a muddle!” she cried; “I don't wonder that Reginald does not care for living at home.”

      “Oh, I wish papa heard you!” cried Janey loudly, as Ursula led the way into the drawing-room, which was not much tidier than the hall. There was a basket-full of stockings to be mended, standing on the old work-table. Ursula felt, with a sinking of the heart, that they were waiting for her arrival, and that Janey had done nothing to them. More toys and more old school-books were tossed about upon the faded old carpet. The table-cover hung uneven, one end of it dragging upon the floor. The fire was burning very low, stifled in dust and white ashes. How dismal it looked! not like a place to come home to. “Oh, I don't wonder Reginald is vexed to be made to live at home,” she said once again to herself, with tears in her eyes.

      “I hope you have enjoyed yourself,” her brother said, as she dropped wearily into the old easy-chair. “We have missed you very much; but I don't suppose you missed us. London was very pleasant, I suppose, even at this time of the year?”

      “Oh, pleasant!” said Ursula. “If you had been with me, how you would have liked it! Suffolk Street is only an inn, but it is a very nice inn, what they call a private hotel. Far better than the great big places on the American principle, Sir Robert says. But we dined at one of those big places one day, and it was very amusing. Scores of people, and great mirrors that made them look hundreds. And such quantities of lights and servants; but Sir Robert thought Suffolk Street very much the best. And I went to two theatres and to a ball. They were so kind. Sophy Dorset laughs at me sometimes, but Anne is an angel,” said Ursula fervently. “I never knew any one so good in my life.”

      “That is not saying much,” said Janey, “for none of us are very good, and you know nobody else. Anne Dorset is an old maid.”

      “Oh, Janey! how dare you?”

      “And, for that matter, so is Sophy. Papa says so. He says she was jilted, and that she will never get a husband.”

      “Hold your tongue,” said Reginald fiercely, “if we are to hear what my father says at second hand through an imp like you – ”

      “Oh, yes,” said Janey, mocking, “that is because you are not friends with papa.”

      “Janey, come and help me to take off my things,” said Ursula, seeing that Reginald would probably proceed to strong measures and box his sister's ears. “If you were older, you would not talk like that,” she said, with dignity, as they went upstairs. “Oh, dear Janey, you can't think how different Cousin Anne and Sophy are, who are not girls, like us. They never talk unkindly of other people. You would get to think it childish, as I do, if you had been living with Cousin Anne.”

      “Stuff!” said Janey. “Papa is not childish, I hope. And it was he who said all that. I don't care what your fine Cousin Anne does.”

      Notwithstanding, the reproof thus administered went to Janey's heart; for to a girl of fifteen, whose next sister is almost twenty, the reproach of being childish is worse than any other. She blushed fiery-red, and though she scoffed, was moved. Besides, though it suited her to quote him for the moment, she was very far from putting any unbounded faith in papa.

      “Just wait a moment! See what Cousin Anne, whom you think so little of, has sent you,” said Ursula, sitting down on the floor with the great parcel in her lap, carefully undoing the knots; for she had read Miss Edgeworth's stories in her youth, and would not have cut the strings for the world; and when the new dresses, in all their gloss and softness, were spread out upon the old carpet, which scarcely retained one trace of colour, Janey was struck dumb.

      “Is that,” she said, faltering and conscience-stricken, “for me?”

      “This is for you; though you think them old maids – and that they will never get husbands,” said Ursula, indignantly. “What a thing for a girl to say! And, indeed, I don't think Cousin Anne will ever get a husband. There is not one in the world half good enough for her – not one! Yes, this is for you. They went themselves, and looked over half the things in the shop before they could get one to please them. They did not say, 'Janey is an unkind little thing, that will repeat all she hears about us, and does not care for us a bit.' They said, 'Ursula, we must choose frocks for Janey and Amy. Come and help us to get what they will like best.'”

      Janey's lips quivered, and two very big tears came into her eyes. She was stricken with the deepest compunction, but her pride did not permit her to give in all at once.

      “I dare say you told her how badly off we were,” she said.

      “I told her nothing about it, and she did not say a word – not a word, as if it were a charity – only to please you – to let you see that you were remembered; but I dare say it is quite true after all,” said Ursula, with lofty irony, “that Cousin Anne will never get a husband, and that they are old