Carrie, however, was not so easily answered. She followed Phil’s retreating figure as it disappeared round the Square, before she spoke again, then she said, with great decision— ‘There goes my husband that is to be, Patty.’ ‘Lor’! have a care what you say in the streets, Miss Carrie!’ cried Patty, with a delighted giggle. Thus Phil passed out of Carrie’s life for the time being. It was not an age of learned women, so though Carrie began her education about this time, she was not the disquieting receptacle of knowledge that modern childhood sometimes is in our progressive age. Carrie learned to read and write, she could do a little arithmetic, and began to sew a sampler of intricate stitchery; but she could not analyse her native tongue, or speak in any other, and I fear even her knowledge of geography was very hazy. Indeed, if the truth must be told about Carrie, she was entirely unintellectual in every way. Lessons were nothing but a pain to her, and as in these days a woman was not thought to add to her charms by wisdom, Carrie was not compelled to pursue her studies after she had attained to a certain very easy standard. She was compelled, however, to learn all the housekeeping arts, and Mrs. Shepley expected nothing short of perfection in this branch of education. By the time Carrie was thirteen there was a good deal of friction between the mother and daughter. For Carrie, to her want of intellectuality, added a supreme carelessness, which was agonising to her conventional parent. If she had been an incapable girl it would have been different; but Carrie was far from incapable. When she chose, no girl of her age could accomplish any household task better. Yet, where it was a question of pleasure, Carrie would fling aside every duty and amuse herself without a thought. She had indeed a whole-heartedness of joy in living, that would have reconciled almost any one except Mrs. Shepley to her heedless ways. But to her they were unpardonable, and the worst of it all was, that Carrie’s father encouraged her in her careless habits—making it almost useless for her to remonstrate. How it would have fared between the mother and daughter later in life is hard to say. They were both spared this test. For soon after Carrie’s fourteenth birthday was past, Mrs. Shepley fell ill of a lingering disorder, and lay for many a long month between life and death. Carrie grew less careless in these months of anxiety, grew quieter also, poor child—never shut the doors noisily, and almost forgot how to whistle, while Sebastian went about with a very grave face. Now that Emma was so ill, he recognised what a good wife she had been to him in spite of all her failings, and realised too what it would mean to him should he be left with Carrie motherless on his hands. Whatever Emma’s faults had been, she had been a careful mother, and had given a zealous watchfulness to everything concerning Carrie that he never could have time to give.