“And I suppose, Miss Queenie, if you happened to get lost some day, and were found by poor people, and dressed in poor clothes, you would not be a gentleman’s little daughter any longer?” Queenie flushed indignantly, and drew up her little head. “I am Sir Walter Arbuthnot’s only daughter,” she said, in her most stately way. “Nothing that could happen could make any difference to _that_.” Nurse smiled again. “Oh, I thought it was all a matter of clothes.” Queenie made no reply. She began to see that there was something more than that to be taken into consideration; but she was not going to make any rash admissions to her nurse, whose ideas upon some subjects did not at all commend themselves to the little lady. But she thought a good deal about the little boy who had come to the Manor House, and wove several romances about him. She wondered whether she would ever make his acquaintance, what he would be like if she did, and whether he would prove worthy of the notice she half resolved she would take of him should the opportunity present itself. Queenie, as will be seen from what has gone before, was a little lady with a great idea of her own importance. It was not altogether her own fault that she had this exalted opinion of herself. She was an only daughter, and had been spoiled ever since she was born. The youngest of the family and the only girl, it was no wonder she had been made much of, and her beauty, her self-will, and her quickness all helped to increase the dangers and difficulties of the position. Her father gave way to her whims in everything, whenever she appealed to him, for he was much entertained by her vivacity and delighted in her fearlessness and high spirit. He secretly countenanced those acts of insubordination and defiance of authority that shocked Lady Arbuthnot’s sense of propriety, and cared nothing at all about her “tomboy tricks” so long as she was always ready to amuse him by her sharp sayings when she came in to dessert or was sent for into the drawing-room. The mother, on the other hand, disliked all this tendency to frolic and careless deportment, and sedulously cultivated what she termed the graceful side of her little daughter’s character. In plain words, she tried hard to instill a great deal of vanity and foolish pride into Queenie’s youthful mind, and had it not been for the child’s healthy love for play and natural freedom from petty follies of this kind, she would in all probability have become before this time a little woman of fashion instead of a happy, careless child. As it was, in spite of many drawbacks and many dangers, the child was a child still,—proud, self-willed, and passionate, it is true, yet on the whole generous, well-disposed and merry, satisfied with herself and with most things about her. She was not spoiled yet, whatever she might be later, and she undoubtedly owed much to the kindly and judicious treatment of her nurse.