It was always a terrible ordeal to the sensitive little Southron to shake four cold hands and smile “good-night” up into four cold faces when, the day’s work over, she could run through the garden to the cottage built in one corner of it, where she lived with an old servant of the family to wait upon her. But to-night it was far more terrible than it had ever been before. One degree more of frost in the manner of papa, mamma, eldest girl, and second girl made her feel that her sin, in letting herself be carried off by those worldlings, and possibly enjoying their godless society, was grievous indeed. But they never guessed the pain they were inflicting. Nay, they meant to be rather kind about it; and Mrs. Mainwaring asked, not without veiled curiosity: “Well, did you enjoy yourself at the Grange? I suppose they were very kind to you?” “Oh, yes, very kind.” “You had a beautiful dinner, didn’t you?” asked Betty, who was rather a _gourmand_. “Yes, very nice,” answered Miss Lane, who had indeed not been insensible to the difference between the cookery of the Grange and that of the Vicarage. “Did they all get tipsy?” asked Bertram, aged seven, very shyly. “Oh, no! What makes you ask that, Bertram?” “Ben said they did,” whispered he, sheepishly withdrawing--Ben was the coachman, with a dash of gardener. “Did you think them nice?” asked Joan, inquisitorially. “They were all very kind; but, oh, they quarrel dreadfully!” “You wouldn’t like to be governess there, I suppose?” “Oh, no, Mrs. Mainwaring!” answered Miss Lane, fervently and sincerely. Yet, when she was once more alone, trying faithfully to banish outward thoughts and prepare herself for her prayers, the admiration, the warm kindliness of the wrong-headed Braithwaites would rush in and contrast itself with the logical conduct of the Mainwarings, who hung about her when she was in high spirits and neglected her when she was unhappy and unwell. “I do hope he is not hurt!” was her last thought. CHAPTER III. Meanwhile Stephen Lawler had returned to the Grange, happy in the favor pretty Miss Lane had accorded him at the expense of Harry, whom he hated with a hatred which, if unreasonable, was not without excuse. He joined his cousins in the billiard-room, where a hot quarrel between George and Harry was only just kept from blazing forth afresh by the presence of their father, the only power on earth which could keep in check the ungovernable passions of his unruly brood. Stephen glanced from one to the other of the two angry, flushed faces, and rolled the spot-ball along the table in an idle manner, through which the least glimpse of the conqueror showed. George laughed unpleasantly. “Stephen looks happy.” “He’s the fox who carried off the lamb while the lion and tiger were fighting about it,” said Wilfred, the second son, quoting from Æsop’s fables rather at random. “Was she kind, Stephen?” asked George, mockingly. “Very kind--much kinder than she was to you.”