I wonder where the living creature is that could stand Hatty! There was I at work this morning in the parlour, when in she came--there were Sophy and Fanny too--holding up something above her head. "`Busk ye, busk ye, my bonnie, bonnie bride!'" sang Hatty. "Look what I've found, just now, in the garret! Oh yes, Miss Caroline, you can look too." "Hatty, if you don't give me that book this minute--!" cried I. "I did think I had hidden it out of search of your prying fingers." "Dear, yes, and of my bright eyes, I feel no doubt," laughed Hatty. "You are not quite so clever as you fancy, Miss Caroline. Carlisle is a charming city, but it does not hold all the brains in the world." "What is it, Hatty?" said Sophy. "Don't tease the child." "Wait a little, Miss Sophia, if you please. This is a most interesting and savoury volume, wherein Miss Caroline Courtenay sets down her convictions on all manner of subjects in general, and her unfortunate sisters in particular. I find--" "Hatty, do be reasonable, and give the child her book," said Fanny. "It is a shame!" "Oh, you keep one too, do you, Miss Frances?" laughed Hatty. "I had my suspicions, I will own." "What do you mean?" said Fanny, flushing. "Only that the rims of your pearly ears would not be quite so ruddy, my charmer, if you were not in like case. Well, I find from this book that we are none of us perfect, but so far as I can gather, Fanny comes nearest the angelic world of any of us. As to--" "Hatty, you ought to be ashamed of yourself if you have been so dishonourable as to read what was not meant for any one to see." "My beloved Sophy, don't halloo till you are out of the wood. And you are not out, by any means. You are vulgar and ill-bred, my dear; you say `coom' and `boot,' and you are only fit to marry a country curate, and cut out shirts and roll pills." "I say what?" asked Sophy, disregarding the other particulars. "You say `coom' and `boot,' my darling, and it ought to be `kem' and `bet'," said Hatty, with such an affected pronunciation that Sophy and Fanny both burst out laughing. "What do you mean?" said Sophy amid her laughter. "Then--Fanny, my dear, you are not to escape! You are better bred than Sophy, because you take castor oil--" "Hatty, what nonsense you are talking!" I cried, unable to endure any longer. But Hatty went on, taking no notice. "But you drop your r's, deah, and say deah Caroline,--(can't manage it right, my dear!)--and you are slow and affected." "Hatty, you know I never said so!" I screamed. "Then as to me," pursued Hatty, casting her eyes up to the ceiling, "as to poor me, I am--well, not one of the angels, on any consideration. I tease my sweetest sister in the most cruel manner--" "Well, that is true, Hatty, if nothing else is," said Fanny. "I have `horrid glazed red cheeks,' and I eat like a plough-boy; and I don't take castor oil. Castor oil is evidently one of the Christian graces."