‘Dolly is a little, wise woman, and speaks proverbs and parables,’ said Miss Cherry. ‘Yes, dear, I want to come; but we must wait for mamma.’ ‘Oh, go on, you are light and airy; you have not been tried with a large family like me! You had better give me your arm, Agnes, for the rest of the way. What a pull it is! I don’t think I should ever walk if I had my choice. If I could afford a pair of ponies like yours; but with so many children ponies are out of the question,’ said Mrs. Burchell, still aggrieved. Miss Cherry looked wistfully at the pretty daughter upon whose arm her friend laid a heavy hand. ‘Perhaps we both have something that the other would like to have,’ she said, mildly. ‘I believe that is the way in life.’ ‘Oh, it would never do for you, a single woman, to wish for children! I consider that most improper,’ said the rector’s wife. ‘Of course we all wished for husbands in our day, and some of us were successful and some weren’t; but it isn’t a subject to be talked of, pardon me, my dear Cherry, before young girls.’ Miss Cherry opened her mild eyes very wide, and then she blushed a delicate, overwhelming old-maidenly blush, one of those demonstrations of feeling which are almost more exquisite in the old than in the young. She did not make any reply. Mrs. Burchell went on in her daughter’s ear: ‘She is an old fool--look at her. Blushing! as if she were a young girl.’ ‘I can’t blush when I please, mamma,’ said Agnes; ‘neither, I suppose, can she. Lean on me a little heavier; we shall soon get to the top now.’ ‘Why, she _runs_ actually,’ said poor Mrs. Burchell. ‘She is as light as Dolly; she doesn’t mind the hill. So, Cara, your papa and mamma have gone away again? Why don’t they take you with them? I should think you are old enough now to go too. How different people are! Now, I can never bear to be separated from my children. I like them to go everywhere with me. It is quite astonishing the difference. Doesn’t your Aunt Charity think it strange that they should always send you here?’ ‘Aunt Charity likes to have me,’ said Cara; ‘for mamma travels very fast, and I should get very tired. I think I like the Hill best. Mamma is not very strong, and I should have to stop all my lessons.’ ‘But you would not mind that, I should think. My girls are always so glad to get lessons over. They would go mad with joy to have their month’s holiday, and I am sure so would you.’ ‘No,’ said Cara; ‘I am nearly twelve, and I can only play three or four tunes, and talk a little French with Aunt Cherry. We pronounce very badly,’ she continued, with a blush. ‘I know by the French people who come to see us in the Square.’ ‘You poor child! do you mean to say they let you stay up at night, and hear people talking in the drawing-room? How very wrong for you, both for your mind and health! that is what makes you so thin, I am sure; and you must hear a great many things that you ought not to hear.’