Mrs. Drummond always made some dry sarcastic remark when they came in, for she was secretly jealous of Archie's affection for Grace. Hers was rather a monopolizing nature, and she would willingly have had the first share in her son's affections. It somewhat displeased her to see him so wrapt up in the one sister to the exclusion of all the others, as she told him. "I think you might have asked Matilda or Isabel to accompany you. The poor girls never see anything of you, Archie," she would say plaintively to her son. But to Grace she would speak somewhat sharply, bidding her fulfil some neglected duty, which another could as well have performed, and making her at once understand by her manner that she was to blame in leaving Mattie at home. "Mother," Archibald said to her one day, when she had spoken with unusual severity, and the poor girl had retreated from the room, feeling as though she had been convicted of selfishness, "we must settle the matter about which I spoke to you last night. I have been thinking about it ever since. Mattie will not do at all. I must have Grace!" Mrs. Drummond looked up from her mending, and her thin lips settled into a hard line that they always took when her mind was made up on a disagreeable subject. She had a pinafore belonging to Dottie in her hand; there was a jagged rent in it, and she sighed impatiently as she put it down; though she was not a woman who shirked any of her maternal duties, she had often been heard to say that her work was never done, and that her mending-basket was never empty. "But if I cannot spare Grace," she said, rather shortly, as she meditated another lecture to the delinquent Dottie. "But, mother, you must spare her!" returned her son, eagerly, leaning his elbow on the mantelpiece, and watching her rapid manipulations with apparent interest. "Look here; I am quite in earnest. I have set my heart on having Grace. She is just the one to manage a clergyman's household. She would be my right hand in the parish." "She is our right hand too, Archie; but I suppose we are to cut it off, that it may benefit you and your parish." Mrs. Drummond seldom spoke so sharply to her eldest son; but this request of his was grievous to her. "I think Grace ought to be considered, too, in the matter," he returned, somwhat sullenly. "She works harder than any paid governess, and gets small thanks for her trouble." "She does her duty," returned Mrs. Drummond, coldly,--she very seldom praised any of her children,--"but not more than Mattie does hers. You are prejudiced strongly against your sister, Archie; you are not fair to her in any way. Mattie is a capital little housekeeper. She is economical, and full of clever contrivances. It is not as though I asked you to try Isabel. She is well enough, too, in her way, but a little flighty, and rather too pretty, perhaps--" but here a laugh from Archie grated on her ear.