SCENE.—Three weeks later. Breakfast table at Darkglade Vicarage, Mr. Aveland and Euphrasia reading their letters. Three little children eating bread and milk.
E. There! Mary has got the house at Brompton off her hands and can come for good on the 11th. That is the greatest possible comfort. She wants to bring her piano; it has a better tone than ours.
Mr. A. Certainly! Little Miss Hilda there will soon be strumming her scales on the old one, and Mary and Cis will send me to sleep in the evening with hers.
E. Oh!
Mr. A. Why, Phrasie, what’s the matter?
E. This is a blow! Cicely is only coming to be bridesmaid, and then going back to board at Kensington and go on with her studies.
Mr. A. To board? All alone?
E. Oh! that’s the way with young ladies!
Mr. A. Mary cannot have consented.
E. Have you done, little folks? Then say grace, Hilda, and run out till the lesson bell rings. Yes, poor Mary, I am afraid she thinks all that Cecilia decrees is right; or if she does not naturally believe so, she is made to.