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fancy of her own or of my aunt's.

Possibly it was a custom of the Dunks'. They received me kindly, as one they had known as a child. 'Ma'am,' said Crampton in a hushed voice as we crossed the low red-tiled hall, you'll have a hard time of it with my mistress. Excuse me, but I hope you'll bear with her.'

'And if we can give you any little hints we will, bless you; for you're as like what you was at three weeks old as pin to pin,' added Crow, pressing my hand.

'And be sure you never gainsay her, ma'am,' said Crampton; 'if she says you are as black as them niggers, be sure you say you've known it all along. She's a good lady at heart.'

'If one can but find it out,' added Crow, who generally finished his sentences. Perhaps it was for this purpose she accompanied him. And she's getting on in years, Miss Jane. She's not as young as she were, poor lady.'

You old dotard! that's not true. I get younger every day I live.' It was a loud voice, and it was close to us. Crampton and Crow vanished, and I turned to be welcomed by aunt Dunk.

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Short and spare, dressed in a black gown to which the same adjectives might truthfully be applied; small sharp black eyes, thin tight lips, red cheeks, and a most palpable front' of shiny black curls, above which peeped a quarter of an inch of real gray hair. She was holding open a door, and signing to me to enter.

"The ridiculous old idiot! daring to talk about me! I'll let him know I won't be talked about. Not as young as I was! I'll be bound I'm a great deal younger and brisker! Come in here, child, and let's have a look at you. Ah, come, you are plain enough. I knew I was right, in spite of all their Hannahs. No colour, no eyes to speak of; spots on the face; crooked nose. Well done.' It was a long untidy nondescript room.

A fire burned on the

hearth, and half-a-dozen schoolgirls stared in the background.

'Sit there till I send off my class. They have just done. John Groom and Crampton said you could not be here till six, and I knew you would come by five; so I had up the girls to worry them— Crampton, I mean. He can't abide any one to find them here. Now you shall see what physical education means. Girls! attention! march!'

And, to my utter amazement, placing her hands on her shoulders aunt Dunk began to march up and down the room, followed by her class, some of whom imitated her with a fidelity which was too much for the gravity of the others.

'Were you ever drilled, child?' asked my aunt, stopping so abruptly that the whole class nearly came to grief.

'No, ma'am,' I responded meekly, faintly.

High time you should begin. Stand up and do as we do.'

I obeyed in fear and trembling, and some moments passed in

feeble imitation of the terrible energy aunt Dunk displayed. Conscious of being an object of ridicule to my fellow-pupils, I was ready to drop from mortification and fatigue, when the door was quietly opened and a young man entered the room. My aunt nodded to him, still continuing her instructions, and I stepped aside and resumed my seat.

How d'ye do, Charles ? One, two, three. Tired, child? Stuff and nonsense! Head up, Eliza Stours. One, two, three. Sit down, Charles; just done. Shoulders down, Ellen Toms. One, two

'Charles' looked both vexed and amused, and I shivered in my chair. I had heard of Henry and Charles Treyhen, sons of aunt Dunk's only sister, and I recognised the present Charles as a Treyhen and the clergyman of the parish.

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'There,' said aunt Dunk triumphantly, that will do. your bonnets, girls. That is something like teaching-beginning at the beginning. I have a theory, Jane, that the first thing to teach children is-how to walk. It is the first step towards preserving health. People's chests contract with stooping- hence disease. Charlés here differs from me.'

'Only in thinking other instruction of more importance.'

'There you are quite mistaken. The groundwork is of the most consequence. You begin at the roof, and so it all falls down together. You try to stuff their brains before they've got any. This is how you go to work- Here, girls! attention!' They stood before her. Now, my good girls, Mr. Treyhen wishes you to learn to think-to use your reason. Listen to me. He wants to know who wrote St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians. Now think.'

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A dead silence. The girls looked at one another. Aunt Dunk waxed impatient. Come, girls, think; can't ye say something?' Thus admonished, the eldest girl grew very red in the face, and feebly suggested Solomon,' while another, gaining courage from the immediate discomfiture of her friend, promptly added 'Moses.'

'No, he didn't, and he didn't,' said aunt Dunk in triumph; and now you may go home and find out who did, and mind you walk as should be. There; that's all thinking does for them. You work their brains too soon. All children are fools, and you may be sure it's for some good purpose, and that purpose undoubtedly is to give the body time to grow in health and strength. Those girls won't be fools when they are grown women, unless you make them so with your preaching and your teaching. There, now, don't contradict me. My mind's made up. Here's my niece, and she's not come here to help you with the schools, I can tell you. She will have duties at home.'

Mr. Treyhen looked to see if my amusement equalled his own. It did not. I was weary and overwhelmed, and already regretting the wayward fancy which had brought me to Dunk Marsh.

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What did you come for?' asked aunt Dunk suddenly. Though the question was not addressed to me, I felt it in every nerve, and was on the point of answering, Because I was a fool.' Mr. Treyhen forestalled me. To ask you to give up drilling the children.'

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Then I shall not.

So that's settled and done.'

Very well. I suppose you like being the laughing-stock of the village.'

I am no such thing, you impudent boy.'

O, then I did not meet Eliza Stours yesterday evening marshalling the girls, and making them walk like you.'

'I am heartily glad to hear it. My instruction is appreciated,

you see.'

'Very much so. Eliza took off your voice and manners so well, that Tom and William Champ, and young Groves, and one or two others, were applauding loudly, and I felt ready to laugh myself. Just like the old missis," said Tom.'

'I don't believe a word of it. hands of the whole lot of them. patience with the people.'

The little minx! I'll wash my
I'll never believe it.
I have no

Apparently Mr. Treyhen was satisfied, for he turned the conversation, and chatted pleasantly upon other subjects for some time, receiving my aunt's repeated contradictions with a lazy smile which excited my envy, for already she irritated me almost beyond endurance. When he took leave she called to him to come back, but he did not hear.

'Run after him, Jane. Just tell him to stop at the school, and lesire the second class, the second drill-class, to be here by nine to-morrow.'

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I overtook him in the hall, and delivered my message. He laughed outright. You should not have caught me, Miss Pellam. Please tell my aunt that I cannot possibly deliver such a message. I do not recognise the class; or stay-tell her I will send them, and the Champ boys too, to applaud. Good-evening.'

It was too audacious. How could I repeat it?

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'Well,' said aunt Dunk sharply, what did he say ?'
'Nothing, aunt Dunk,' I mumbled rather than spoke.
'That's not true. Out with it at once.

Some impudence, I'll be bound. 66 Nothing" won't do for me.' And with those sharp eyes fixed upon me I felt impelled to repeat the message word for word. Aunt Dunk gave a snort, but nevertheless I could see that she was not displeased.

'There! I knew it. Never say "Nothing" to me, or we sha'n't get on. Come up-stairs now. You are nice and ugly, that's one comfort.'

Now I really was not so very ill-looking, indeed some people

thought me rather pretty at times; and so Crow hinted to my aunt that evening, but aunt Dunk would not hear of it. I was irreparably frightful in her eyes, for she had settled it herself.

We dined together in a room on the other side of the hall. It was the same size and shape as the drawing-room, and was hung round with pictures of ancient and modern Dunks in rags. I do not mean that these highly-respectable personages were represented as clothed in rags, but that the canvases were, from age and ill-treatment, reduced to that condition. Crampton waited in carpet slippers. He stood behind his mistress with his arms akimbo, and joined freely in the conversation. For this he apologised to me the first time he found me alone. My mistress expects it of me, ma'am, and I thought it might be a help to you on the first night; but I am aware that it is not the custom in families of distinction.'

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And

it was a help on that first night, and many others. The old man was, however, often sorely perplexed, between his anxiety to propitiate his mistress and his reluctance to hurt my feelings.

And so they really do not call you the plain one,' said aunt Dunk, eyeing me complacently. Why, I pitched on you the mo

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ment I saw the photographs; didn't I, Crampton?'

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'Yes, ma'am; I be-lieve you did. But them photographs is often nasty deceiving things.'

'Well, they did not deceive us here, at all events. Why, she's as ugly as sin.'

'I don't think the young lady is so bad to look at, ma'am,' said Crampton, in patronising pity.

Then you know nothing about it, you stupid old man. These peas are not half boiled, Crampton. I wish you would tell the girl.' 'I spoke to her yesterday, ma'am.'

'What business had you to do any such thing? What business have you to speak to the maids unless I desire it ?'

At

This lively style of conversation continued until we adjourned to the drawing-room, where aunt Dunk at once took out her netting. No elegant silk purse or airy scarf, but an enormous length of netting of the coarsest twine, fastened to a nail in the wall. this she stood up the whole evening, working furiously, and talking vehemently. She questioned me minutely concerning every detail of our family history, plans, and prospects, blaming everything we had done or thought of doing. My father was quite wrong in dying so suddenly, my mother had no right to linger so long, my sisters ought all to have been brothers, and I myself had no business to have been born at all. All this was far from soothing to one used to the indulgence of a sister Anne; but ere long it merged into the alarming, for I committed the great error of pronouncing an animated 'No.' 'If I had my way with you girls, you would all be trained to some profession. Anne would have made a capital doctor,

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