“I told you how it would be,” said that Job’s comforter, Alithea Hope, spinster, as she and Mrs. Dudley drove along the pleasant country roads to the station—Heather crouched up into one corner of Mrs. Seymour’s carriage, so that her child might lie on the seat with her head resting on her mother’s lap—“I told you how it would be, if you refused to take my advice; and now I hope you are satisfied at the result of your non-interference principle. Sweetness, and amiability, and submission, and all that kind of thing, are delightful traits, no doubt, in a wife, but they are qualities thrown away on Arthur Dudley—and so you will find out some day. The kindest thing you could have done to your husband would have been to say: “‘Now, look here, Arthur: if you are resolved to make a fool of yourself, I won’t make a fool of myself with you. Go to town if you like, but I stay at Berrie Down. If you are determined to take the bread out of your children’s mouths, I am equally resolved we shall not all be left paupers, if I can prevent it; therefore, I mean to remain and manage the farm, and whenever you are tired of your shares and your companies, and your Blacks and your town life, you can come home again.’” Heather laughed; she was a little hysterical about leaving Berrie Down and all the kind friends she had recently found there, and so even while she laughed the tears came into her eyes again. The idea of her making such a speech to Arthur; of her taking such a stand and setting her will up in open defiance of his; of her twitting her husband with his decision, and prophesying failure for him! Heather could not choose but laugh, and then she cried; and then Miss Hope told her she was a soft, silly, stupid creature, who had no more business to marry Arthur Dudley than Mr. Raidsford had to marry that great vulgar illiterate dowdy, who “came over in her caravan to see you this morning; you don’t want me to speak about Mrs. Raidsford before Lally,—is that the meaning of all those signs? The sooner Lally is taught to repeat nothing she hears, the better; the sooner little girls learn their mouths and ears were given them to be kept tight shut, the more sugar-plums will be bought and popped in between their little red lips. Are you attending to me, Lally?” “Iss; but how’s me to eat sugar-plums if I keeps mows shut?” inquired Miss Hope’s pupil. “You are to open it at proper times,” answered her teacher; “but not to repeat what older people say before you.” “Lally don’t ’peat,” replied the child, wearily. “Ma, is it far to London now? will it be long before we are there? me so tired—me so tired!” Whereupon mother and aunt looked at each other, and Miss Hope said,—