As Mary Armstrong stands by her mother, smoothing the soft ringlets, it is plainly to be seen that the pretty child of twelve has developed into a very beautiful woman. At the age of eighteen she resembles her mother only in complexion, eyes, and hair. Her features, though as regular, are not so delicately chiselled, they are larger and more marked; and in this, as in an expression of calm decision, the resemblance to her father is very striking. It is when she smiles, and her blue eyes light up with pleasure and interest, that strangers often exclaim, "How like you are to your mother, Miss Armstrong!" Mary has grown very little since the time when her cousin named her "Cinderella," but she looks taller, partly on account of her figure having fully developed into rounded proportions, but principally because the curls have disappeared. They have been tortured into plaits and massive coils at the back of her head, but true to Nature they often rebel, and escape here and there in the form of ringlets--often unnoticed by their owner, but when pointed out to her they are unceremoniously pushed back. Mary is still influenced by the words of her father; he once said to her, "Mary, can you not arrange your hair as other girls do? those long curls are too childish at your age." From this moment, to her mother's great regret, she, as it was then called, "turned up her hair" in the way we have described. Her aunts approved, because this arrangement was less singular and more fashionable, which latter fact would have greatly surprised Mr. Armstrong. At all events, they differed from him in one respect still. When the rebellious hair would escape from the plaits in stray ringlets while in the company of her aunts, Mary had at first attempted to reduce them to submission, but she was quickly interrupted. "Leave your hair alone, Mary," her aunt Herbert exclaimed; "why, those stray ringlets are most effective, and quite an improvement to the appearance of your head. Surely your father will not object to what is natural; if you curled it in paper every night to produce an effect, then he might complain or disapprove." Mary laughed, but when visiting at her aunt's she allowed Nature to act as she pleased. Yet at home there seemed no happier task to the young girl than to give way to every wish of her father, whether openly expressed or slightly hinted at, no matter to what it referred. It was a kind of hero-worship in the girl's heart. Her father was her hero, and the fact that she did not love him with the same clinging fondness as she loved her mother was quite unknown to herself. Mary Armstrong certainly obeyed the command, "Honour thy father and thy mother;" yet in the family at Lime Grove there was still one thing wanting, "the perfect love that casteth out fear."