So it proved, however. The beautiful little rectory to which they must remove with the new year had been built by a childless predecessor, and would be too small to hold the troop of juvenile Barrs, to say nothing or Mary Baxendell. Moreover, the Baxendells would not spare Mary to go any distance from High Lea. Until the rectory could be enlarged, it was settled that the elder girls should go to a boarding-school, and the twin boys should attend a good day-school, which was within an easy distance of their future home. My occupation was gone. My pupils were about to be scattered, I was to lose the precious little one that called herself Miss Anstey's baby, and whose curly head had so often rested on my breast in sleep, and enriched me by her sweet presence! I should lose the companionship of Mrs. Barr too, and more. I must begin to look round for some other work to do, some roof beneath which there would be room for Lois Anstey. I was very down-hearted, not because I had to work for my bread, but for fear I might not find the work to do, and at the thought of going out again into the wide world and all amongst strangers. It was in vain I took myself to task for selfishness. I did rejoice in the good which had come to these dear friends, but how could I wholly forget that the message which brought new life to them was almost like death to me? It had been previously settled that I was to spend Christmas with the Baxendells. I had half hoped that they might engage me as governess to Mary, but I found that Mr. Baxendell shrank from the idea of having a governess in the house. He seemed to think it would spoil its privacy, and prove a restraint to him and his wife. Mrs. Baxendell would have liked to engage me. Mary pleaded for this with her father. But though he rarely denied his pet anything, he would not yield in this matter. "My wife and I are a Darby and Joan couple," said Mr. Baxendell. "We are quiet, too, in our ways, and we would never condemn a young girl to the loneliness of a separate room, because we so often find two to be company enough. Mary, our own child, hardly counts as a third in the same sense." I could not plead for a corner, or say that I should be contented with solitude at High Lea; and so it was settled that music and other teachers should come from a neighbouring town to give Mary periodical lessons and complete her education at home. The girl displayed more temper about this matter than I had seen in her before. "As if I should ever do a morsel of good all by myself!" she said. "It is horrid to think of solitary lessons, and I know my teachers will get no credit out of me. I would rather have you than a whole townful of other people. I know I shall hate the very sight of them."