'Don't be saucy, Cock-robin. One grand maid would be bad enough, scaring Theodore, and upsetting Sibby. No, no, Rob! leave countesses to those who can live as sich.'

'You need alter nothing. You may do as Bear says you do—eat boiled pork and greens every day at one o'clock—and she'll like it! She and her aunt always do dine early; and as to her maid, she is a little Repworth thing, just promoted from waiting on us in the school-room. I'll answer for her. The very attraction is, that you'll leave her in peace, and not beset her with dinner-parties.'

'She doesn't keep a duenna, then?'

'Duenna!'

'Well, heiresses in books always do. And in this case it seems to me that the article would be desirable.'

'Oh, we settled all that! Wilmet is equal to as many duennas as you like. She will come and do all the chaperoning.'

'Do you mean that she has undertaken it? Then I can only submit, provided the Squire does.'

The Squire made a few wry faces, but consented, with all a man's superior philosophy towards domestic disorganizations of which he does not feel the brunt. Besides, both he and Wilmet were proud of Cherry's talent, and the esteem in which Robina was held; and Mrs. Umfraville had been confidential with Wilmet, saying how glad she was to see her child willing to go among youth and brightness. The girl had, she said, never made young friends except the De la Poers, and her Wardour cousins, who had married, and gone out of reach. She had no suitable neighbours, and 'circumstances' had hindered her being much in London; and loss of her father-like uncle had not so much taken away her spirits—for she was always bright—as given her a distaste to society. She hated entertaining people or seeing strangers; cared for nothing but her aunt, her books, her walks, and her poor; was oppressed with the business of her property, and was altogether so studious and indefatigable at three-and-twenty, and so averse to gaieties, that her aunt feared she would never act up to her position, unless her habits of seclusion were broken, and had therefore forced herself to come on this journey with her. But there had been no real thaw till she heard of Vale Leston and met Robina. Wilmet was not a little gratified by hearing, at second-hand, Lady de la Poer's praise of the young governess as a valued friend; and it was plainly to her charge that the precious niece was committed.

When the visit took place, the Countess was soon forgotten in the companion. At first, Felix was a little ceremonious, and she a little shy, watching the family party as if they were acting a play; but as the strangeness wore off, she began by being diverted, though silent from long disuse of family chatter, and soon plunged in, with as droll and eager a tongue as ever wagged.

Then Cherry found her face quite unlike her first reading of it, and had to begin all over again. It was altogether, as Bernard said, a jolly time. That young gentleman was, for the first time, smitten. His devotion to himself and cricket had never before been disturbed; and he had reached his eighteenth year without regarding woman as intended for any purpose but to wait upon him. But bright eyes, merry smiles, genuine fun, and mayhap the rank that gratified his vanity, began to avenge the wrongs of the sex; and Bernard was enslaved enough to amuse and edify his brothers and sisters—all the more, that the simple-hearted Countess was perfectly unconscious, thought herself immeasurably older than the great, handsome, idle fellow—half an inch taller than the Vicar, by-the-by—stood on no conventionalities with him, and when released by her task-mistress, would run down-stairs to call him, nothing loth, to give her a row on the river, to blow away the fumes of the painting-room. Quite unawares, she effected a victory for Felix; for when she assumed that since he was going to Oxford it must be to Keble College, and he found that she regarded it as very stupid to do anything else, he entirely forgot all his former objections, and was only too happy to gratify her.