divination is beyond my powers. Mab thought and thought, turning the question over and over in her mind with more curiosity than if she had been a philosopher in search of a new theory. What it is right to do between two conflicting duties is a question for a moralist more than a philosopher, if there is, indeed, any difference between the two. It was a tremendous question. She did not see her friend, the General, though he took off his hat and waved it in cordial greeting as she passed his garden hedge; nor Miss Grey, who had run after her, but finally gave up the chase, unable to make Mab hear her call. Lady William was waiting, though not impatiently, for the mid-day meal, which was the chief repast in the cottage, when Mab reached home: her mother called out to her to make haste, for Anne in the kitchen was apt to lose her temper when her ladies were unpunctual. But Mab was too much confused to make haste. She did not come down for a quarter of an hour, until Anne was half-wild, and Patty in the highest agitation. The dinner had already been sent in, which should have pacified Anne, but she was something of an artiste, in feeling at least, and could not bear her dishes to be spoiled. Mab heard her voice from the depths of the kitchen intoning comminations, and saw that Patty had tears in her eyes, though they sent out pretty sparks of satisfaction at sight of the laggard. ‘Oh, Miss Mab, the soup’s cold,’ she ventured to say, even Patty thus raising a protest. But Lady William was not very severe. ‘You little sluggish thing,’ she said. ‘What have you been doing? Patty and I have been suffering much from Anne. And I fear the soup will be quite cold.’ ‘Oh, that’s all the better,’ said Mab, trying to pluck up a spirit, ‘for it’s a very warm day.’ ‘I am glad you find it so,’ said Lady William, with a shiver. ‘May is seldom so hot in England as to make cold soup desirable. And how did the practice go off, and where have you been? for I saw Emmy and Florry go home a long time ago.’ ‘I have been to Mrs. Brown. They wanted her to act something. She is a very funny woman. She was at her lunch, or dinner, or whatever she calls it. She gave me an apple, which she called _Pomme au sucre_, and I never tasted anything so nice.’ ‘Oh, she is like that, is she?’ said Lady William; ‘the woman who has seen better days.’ ‘Yes, mother, she is like that,’ said Mab; even to say so much as this relieved her mind a little, though she had no idea what was meant by the question or reply. ‘And is she going to--act? To act, did you say?--that will be an odd thing for the schoolmistress to do.’ ‘They thought--she might do Lady Macbeth--or something.’ ‘Or something!’ said Lady William, just as Mrs. Brown had done: ‘that will be still more odd,’ she added, with a laugh. ‘And is she going to do it, Mab? I shall see this woman, then, at last.’