The Veres had in past days been people of no small consideration in their own county, and though for two generations the head of the family had been settled in a different part of England, there were still plenty of people about Mallingford to whom the name in itself was a recommendation to show kindness to the two children who bore it. And as they were loveable and engaging, they soon gained hearts on their own account. There was old Mr. Temple, the clergyman, who had married their parents, and seen the sad end of that story, and his two young-lady daughters, in particular Miss Veronica, who played the organ on Sundays, and sometimes invited May or Harry as a great treat to sit up in the loft beside her, Then there was jolly old Mr. Baldwin, of the Bank, always so merry and hearty; and Geoffrey, his son, the great tall schoolboy, who used to carry both children at once, when they were very small, one perched on each shoulder. He came to see them one Christmas in London, and told them of his kind father’s death, looking so sad and lonely that both Marion and Harry cried when he went away. That was several years ago, but they had never seen Geoffrey Baldwin since; for as they grew older, their visits to Brentshire became fewer, and at last ceased altogether. Their father sold the cottage, and the Midsummer holidays were now spent in London, with the exception of a fortnight or so at the seaside, if it happened to strike Mr. Were that town was unhealthy in hot weather for young people. I think there is very little more to tell of Marion’s early life. Simple and uneventful enough it had been, and with but few of what are usually considered young girls’ special privileges and pleasures. But, on the whole, by no means an unwholesome training for a rich and vigorous nature, though it might have crushed and stunted a poorer one. Such society as, since she grew to womanhood, she had seen at her father’s house, had been almost confined to that of the few friends whom he now and then invited to a somewhat ponderous dinner. Clever men, all of them, in their different ways; interested, if not absorbed, in topics, much of which Marion hardly understood, but from which, not being a common-place young lady, her quick intelligence led her to glean much material for quiet thought and speculation, which certainly did her no harm, and probably more good than the “finishing” touches she would at this period have been undergoing, had her education been more in accordance with prescribed rules.