Vainly did Mowser sigh for those vanished days, the simplicity, the high thinking and plain living, of her girlhood. Here was Mrs. Ferrers wasting the Rector’s substance upon gowns which five-and-twenty years ago would have been considered extravagant for a duchess; here was Daphne dressing herself up—with Madoline’s approval—to look as much as possible like a play-actress or an old picture. Mowser was no fonder of Daphne now than she had been in the days when the unwelcome addition to the nursery was stigmatised as an ‘antelope.’ There was still a good deal of the antelope about Daphne, in Mowser’s opinion. ‘It would have been better for all parties if Miss Daphne had stayed a year or two longer at her finishing school,’ Mowser remarked sententiously in the housekeeper’s room, where she was regarded, or at any rate was known to regard herself, as an oracle. ‘First and foremost, she hasn’t half finished her education.’ ‘Haven’t she, Mowser?’ asked Jinman, Sir Vernon’s own man, with a malicious twinkle in his eye. ‘How did you find out that? Have you been putting her through her paces?’ ‘No, Mr. Jinman; but I hope I know whether a young lady’s education is finished, without the help of book-learning. My mother was left a lone widow before I was three years old, and I hadn’t the opportunities some people have had, and might have made better use of. But I know what a young lady ought to be, and what she oughtn’t to be; and I say Miss Daphne leans most to the last. Why, her manners are not half formed. She goes rushing about the house like a whirlwind; always in high spirits, or in the dumps—no mejum.’ ‘She’s dev’lish pretty,’ said Jinman, who, on the strength of having spent a good deal of time with his master at Limmer’s Hotel, put on a metropolitan and somewhat rakish air. ‘She’s not fit to hold a candle to my mistress,’ retorted Mowser. ‘Not such a reg’lar style of beauty, perhaps, but more taking, more “chick,”’ said the valet. ‘I don’t know what you mean by “chick.” She’s a born flirt. Perhaps that’s what you mean. She’s her mother all over, worse luck for her! the same ways, the same looks, the same tones of voice. I wish she was out of the house. I never feel safe or comfortable about her. She’s like a dagger hanging over my head; and I don’t know when she may drop.’ ‘It’s a pity she refused young Turchill,’ said Jinman. ‘He’s the right sort. But as he still hangs on, I suppose she means to have him sooner or later.’ ‘No, she don’t. _That’s_ not her meaning,’ answered Mowser with significance. ‘What does she mean, then?’ ‘I know what she means. I know her; much better than her poor innocent sister does. Masks and artifexes ain’t no use with me. I can read her. Mr. Turchill ain’t good enough for her. She wants someone better than him. But she won’t succeed in her mackinventions, while Mowser is by to file her—double-faced as she is.’