In that stage, even Lenore was viewed with kindly and appreciative eyes, but not long subsequently to the period when she found the use of her tongue which, of course, after the manner of her sex, she began to ply in vague utterances before a boy would have thought of exercising it, the little creature began to fall out of favour with those ladies who looked upon Mrs. Mortomley as an error in creation. And as Lenore passed as such as she do pass, rapidly from infancy to childhood, she became more obnoxious to those who had a theory as to what little girls and boys should be, founded it may be remarked on the reality of what their own boys and girls had been, or were. Dolly's child, though an only one, was no spoiled brat, always rubbing up against its mother and asking for this, that and the other. Let Dolly be as foolish in all else as she liked, she was wise as regarded Lenore. When with lavish hand the father would have poured toys into her lap, filled her little hands to overflowing, given her every pretty present his eye lit upon, Dolly interfered. Her own childhood, bare of toys and gifts, yet full of an exceeding happiness all self-made, was not, God help her, hid so far away back in the mists of time, but she could understand even in that land of plenty how to bring up the one child given to her. Lenore was a healthy little girl, healthily brought up. As a baby she rolled on the grass or over the carpets, as a tiny little girl she could make herself as happy stringing daisy chains and dandelion flowers, as though each flower had been a pearl of price, and the threads with which she linked them together spun out of gold; no lack of living companions had she either; cats and dogs, kittens and puppies, composed part of the retinue of that tiny queen. But the queen and the retinue gave offence; as, being all natural, how could they avoid doing? Her name in the first instance stank in the nostrils of many worthy women. "Named after some dreadful creature in Lord Byron's poems," they remarked. And if a person favourably inclined to Mrs. Mortomley explained he believed the child was called after Mrs. Werner, and that secondly the name was that of a heroine in one of Edgar Poe's poems, they answered, "The name is suitable enough when given to a Lord's daughter, but Mr. Mortomley is not a Lord, and I hope, Mr.----" this severely, "you do not advocate having the heroines of French and German poets introduced into English homes." At which crass ignorance Mr.----bowed his head and confessed himself conquered. Whilst Lenore, unconscious of disapprobation and offence, grew and was happy, a very impersonation of childish beauty and grace, and all the time trouble was coming. A cloud no bigger than a man's hand hovered in the horizon during the first happy years of her life, betokening a hurricane which ultimately broke over Homewood, and swept it away from her father's possession. CHAPTER VIII.