newspapers, carefully arranged by old Saymore, the butler, in a kind of pattern; for Saymore followed his young ladies, and took a great interest in everything that was artistic. A work-table in one corner overflowed with crewels; in another stood an easel. The place was full of the occupations and fancies of the two girls who had fashioned it into its present shape. While Anne was having the conversation with her father which has been recorded, Mrs. Mountford and Rose were pursuing their different employments in this room. Mrs. Mountford was a contradiction to everything about her. She wore ribbons of the most pronounced brightness, dresses of the old gay colours; and did worsted work. She was a round plump woman, with rosy cheeks and a smiling mouth; but she was not quite so innocent and easy as her looks indicated. She could stand very fast indeed where any point of interest was concerned--and she was doubly immovable in consequence of the fact that her interests were not her own but those of Rose, and therefore she could not be made to feel guilty in respect to them. She had a little table of her own in the midst of all the properties--which she called rubbish--accumulated by the girls, and there pursued her placid way week after week and year after year, working, as if she had been born a century earlier, groups of roses and geraniums for cushions and footstools, and strips of many coloured work for curtains and rugs. Had she been permitted to have her will, the house would have been furnished with these from garret to basement; but as Rose was ‘artistic,’ poor Mrs. Mountford’s Berlin wools were rarely made any use of. They were given away as presents, or disposed of at bazaars. There was a closet in her own room which was full of them, and a happy woman was she when any girl of her acquaintance married, or a fancy fair was announced for any charitable object, which reduced her stores. A workbasket full of the most brilliant wools in the tidiest bundles, a German pattern printed in squares, a little pile of tradesmen’s books in red covers, and a small brown basket full of keys, were the signs of her little settlement in the hall. These possessions stood upon a small table with three legs, decorated with a broad band of Mrs. Mountford’s work. She had said boldly that if she were not permitted to put her own work upon her own table, she did not know what the world would come to. And upon hearing this protest Anne had interfered. Anne was the only person who ever interfered to save her stepmother from the tyranny exercised over her by her own child; but Mrs. Mountford was not grateful enough to return this service by taking Anne’s part.