It pleased him to ask her opinion thus on most things, not that he ever had any intention of heeding her wishes in preference to his own, but in the hope that she would express some modest inclination one way or the other, to give him an impetus in the opposite direction. “I think, dear, that it would hardly do,” murmured the lady, hoping that for once her husband would fall in with her views. “You must have heard the way in which people talk about this Mrs. Dale, so that it would be thought very strange if we let Mabin stay with her. Don’t you think it was rather underhand of her to get hold of the child this afternoon?” “Underhand! Certainly not,” replied Mr. Rose with decision. “The most natural thing in the world, considering how kind she was to the girl at the time of her accident. And as for the talk of the place, why, if you listened to all the old women say you would never go outside your door for fear your neighbors should think you were going to steal their hens!” There was a pause. She would not irritate him by another remark. So he presently went on: “I suppose you think the Vicar’s wife would scold you?” “Not scold, of course, but I am sure she would disapprove,” said Mrs. Rose meekly. “Ah! I thought so. Well, I will give the old lady something to talk about then. Mabin shall stay with Mrs. Dale if she wishes.” Mrs. Rose sighed heavily. “She will wish it, of course. Girls always wish to do the very things which are not proper for them.” “You may be quite satisfied, Emily, that what I allow my daughter to do is quite proper,” said Mr. Rose severely, as he left the room. Mrs. Rose sighed. She had not told him, because it would have been of no use, that she had to be more particular than he about Mabin, because, being the girl’s step-mother only, she was the more exposed to the gossip of the neighborhood--a force she dreaded--than her husband was. But she vented her ill-humor on Mabin herself, whom she informed very acidly that if she chose to go to “this Mrs. Dale,” and was not comfortable with her, the fault was hers and her father’s. Mabin received these remarks meekly, rejoicing in the approaching holiday. She had nothing very serious to complain of in her treatment under her father’s roof, but the snubs of her father, the tacit dislike of her step-mother, and the fact that the difference in age between her half-sisters and herself left her much alone, all combined to make her welcome the change. Emily and Ethel, who were fourteen and twelve years of age, insipid and spiritless young persons with little brown eyes and little brown pigtails, teased her with questions about her visit of the afternoon. “Is it true that her hair’s dyed?” asked Emily, getting Mabin into a corner after tea. “No, of course it’s not,” was the indignant answer. “Oh, well, you needn’t be so angry. Miss Bradley said she was sure it was, and that she knew the very stuff she used.”