When Florence went home to Rapley before she sailed for America, her father said that she had grown into a woman. The naughty-girl period was over. She looked at everything from a different standpoint; and Miss Mordaunt never received such a surprise in her life as when Florence Whittaker called to say good-bye, and to thank her, with manners learnt at Ravenshurst, for all past kindness. Now that she knew how to be polite her broad and genial smile and warm-hearted, outspoken voice were pleasant, and in after days it is not certain that Miss Mordaunt did not look back on Maud Florence Nellie as having had her good points after all. She had a satisfactory parting also with Mrs Lee. She was not so entirely a changed character as to receive her Aunt Stroud's good advice with perfect submission, and the form in which she couched her excellent resolutions for the future was: "Well, I shall be as meek as any lamb to Alberta, and `fly round,' as Harry calls it, whenever she tells me, just because Aunt Stroud declares I shall make them repent of their kindness! And if I were you, Mattie, I'd say yes to Mr Clements to-morrow, for the very reason that Aunt Stroud says you'll never have the sense to see which side your bread's buttered." Whether Mattie availed herself of this ingenious excuse, whether on a closer acquaintance Mr Clements developed traits in common with her favourite heroes, or whether, as was most probable, fiction finally faded before fact, Mattie did bring herself to a favourable answer before Florence sailed. "And who's going to look after Sybil and Ethel?" said Florence virtuously. "My lady and Aunt Charlotte would say it was a great disadvantage to them to be left to themselves." "Well, Florrie," said the aggravated Sybil, "I don't see as _you_ were much the better for having Mattie to look after you." "Florrie is just like Aunt Stroud," said Ethel. "She'll be just as _good advicey_ when she's old enough." For energy will have a vent, and Florence had expended some of her new-found wisdom in endeavouring to regulate her younger sisters' conduct. "Don't quarrel, girls," said Mattie, "when Florrie's going away so soon. I'm not going away from you yet--perhaps not till Sybil's near as old as I was when Aunt Stroud married." Nobody expressed a desire that Florence should give up her new prospects to undertake the responsibility. "No, Martha Jane," said Mrs Stroud, "that would never do. I grant that Florrie's a much better girl than I ever thought to see her. But nothing ever will eradicate the snap and the bounce of her altogether. It's very well for Henery that he has his hands full, and I hope he'll fill up hers. She'll do a turn of work in her day. But young people should be managed quiet and peaceable, and as for the girls--George may marry or Mary Whittaker, your cousin, might want a home. Or, at any rate, there'll be my eye and your eye on them, to keep them straight."