"Of course every clergyman should aim to be a good preacher, but his sermon should be composed with the object of doing as much good as possible, the idea of getting praise by it should never enter his head." "Of course I know I never should have done for a parson, if I had been a man I should have been a----." "Lawyer," the children all shouted in a breath. "Or a midshipman," said Emily. "I wonder what Miss Leicester would have been," observed Rose. "A doctor," said Emily, "I know she would have been a doctor, wouldn't you Isabel." Isabel became scarlet, this was only a random suggestion, but it seemed so like the answer the children had given Emily, that it made her color painfully. "Oh what is the use of talking such nonsense," she replied, but her vivid color had given Emily a new idea; Isabel she whispered "do those pet letters come from a doctor," a shade passed over Isabel's face like a cloud over the sun, as the thought occured that she should get no more pet letters, as Emily chose to call them, for though she had so firmly resolved not to allow her thoughts to dwell upon the past, there were still times when she was painfully reminded of the happy days that would never return, not that she grieved for the loss of Louis, as he now stood revealed in his true character. She knew that it had been her own ideal Louis that she had loved, she had clothed him with virtue that he did not possess, and ascribed to him a nobleness of nature to which he was a stranger, and her bitter sorrow was that he should have proved so different to what she had believed him. She had already begun to think that, as he was what he was, it was all for the best, and even now she felt more of contempt than love regarding him, though nothing short of the offensive and aggravated circumstances that had taken place, could have served to quench such love as her's. Isabel avoided giving an answer to Emily's question, by drawing attention to a beautiful yacht that was now making the harbor, this did for the time, but Emily had made enough by her venture to plague Isabel sufficiently about the doctor, so much so, that Everard took occasion when they two were walking in the shrubbery to remonstrate with his sister, "Emily," he said, "can't you see that Miss Leicester is really annoyed at your nonsense, and I think that it amounts to rudeness in such a case." "Oh she don't care about it." "You are mistaken Emily." "Oh, but it is such fun, I do so like to make her color up, she looks so pretty." "But when you see that it really annoys----." "When I get into the spirit of the thing, I can't stop." interrupted Emily. "I know it," replied Everard gently, "and that is the reason that I mention it, otherwise the matter is too trivial to comment upon."