‘The verdict would have been very different if Miss Harefield had been a labouring man’s daughter,’ said Miss Coyle, who had more to say on this subject than any one else, and who was always uncompromising in her opinions. Bella was not sorry to leave the Water House, though home looked a little more squalid and untidy than usual, after the subdued splendour of Miss Harefield’s mansion. She had not been able to feel at her ease with Beatrix during this last visit. Even to her essentially false nature there was some effort required to preserve a demeanour of unvarying sweetness towards a person she detested. The old Adam was in danger of breaking out now and then. Between Beatrix and herself there stood the shadowy image of Cyril Culverhouse; and there were moments when Bella could not quite command her looks, however sweetly she might attune her voice. And now that Miss Scales was on the scene, with eyes which saw everything, Bella felt that the veneer of affection might be too thin to hide the hardness of the wood underneath it. So Bella resumed the monotonous order of her home life, breakfasted at eight, and presented herself at the Park upon the stroke of nine, where the Piper children, clustering round the newly-lighted fire in the schoolroom, hated her for her punctuality. But she knew that if the children disapproved, Mr. Piper approved, for he generally looked out of the dining-room, newspaper in hand, to give her a friendly nod of welcome. ‘Good little girl, always up to time,’ he said; ‘those are the ’abits that make success in life. That was Brougham’s way. He might be hard at it, drinking and dissipating far into the small hours, but he was always up to time in the morning. Cobbett was never too late for an appointment in his life. Those are the men for my money.’ ‘How is dear Mrs. Piper?’ ‘Well, I think the missus is a trifle better this morning; but she mends very slow, poor soul. I don’t believe the doctors can do much for her.’ Bella sighed, and shook her head sadly, and then went tripping upstairs to the schoolroom, leaving Mr. Piper standing at the dining-room door looking after her. ‘A pretty little girl,’ he said to himself, ‘neatly finished off, like a well-made carriage, or an English watch. No scamping about the workmanship. Poor Moggie never had as pretty a figure as that, though she was a trim-built lass when she and me was courting.’ One day, when Bella had finished the weary round of lessons, and had nearly addled her brains in the endeavour to awaken Brougham’s sluggish mind to the difference between the active and the passive voices of the verb ‘amo,’ she paid her usual visit to Mrs. Piper, and found that lady in tears over a book of sermons. ‘Dear Mrs. Piper,’ cried Bella, with a sympathizing look, ‘have you been feeling worse this morning?’