"What business has he," she would think, "to lecture me? Often I can hardly bear it from papa, and I will not bear it from him. He treats me just like a child, and as if I should lose all my present opinions when I know more of the world. I am sure I should like never to know the world, if it was to make me think as he does, hard man that he is! I wonder what made him take Jem Brown on as gardener again, if he does not believe that above one criminal in a thousand is restored to goodness. I'll ask him, some day, if that was not acting on impulse rather than principle. Poor impulse! how you do get abused. But I will tell Mr Farquhar I will not let him interfere with me. If I do what papa bids me, no one has a right to notice whether I do it willingly or not." So then she tried to defy Mr Farquhar, by doing and saying things that she knew he would disapprove. She went so far that he was seriously grieved, and did not even remonstrate and "lecture," and then she was disappointed and irritated; for, somehow, with all her indignation at interference, she liked to be lectured by him; not that she was aware of this liking of hers, but still it would have been more pleasant to be scolded than so quietly passed over. Her two little sisters, with their wide-awake eyes, had long ago put things together, and conjectured. Every day they had some fresh mystery together, to be imparted in garden walks and whispered talks. "Lizzie, did you see how the tears came into Mimie's eyes when Mr Farquhar looked so displeased when she said good people were always dull? I think she's in love." Mary said the last words with grave emphasis, and felt like an oracle of twelve years of age. "I don't," said Lizzie. "I know I cry often enough when papa is cross, and I'm not in love with him." "Yes! but you don't look as Mimie did." "Don't call her Mimie--you know papa does not like it." "Yes; but there are so many things papa does not like I can never remember them all. Never mind about that; but listen to something I've got to tell you, if you'll never, never tell." "No, indeed I won't, Mary. What is it?" "Not to Mrs Denbigh?" "No, not even to Mrs Denbigh." "Well, then, the other day--last Friday, Mimie--" "Jemima!" interrupted the more conscientious Elizabeth. "Jemima, if it must be so," jerked out Mary, "sent me to her desk for an envelope, and what do you think I saw?" "What?" asked Elizabeth, expecting nothing less than a red-hot Valentine, signed Walter Farquhar, _pro_ Bradshaw, Farquhar, and Co., in full. "Why, a piece of paper, with dull-looking lines upon it, just like the scientific dialogues; and I remembered all about it. It was once when Mr Farquhar had been telling us that a bullet does not go in a straight line, but in a something curve, and he drew some lines on a piece of paper; and Mimie--" "Jemima," put in Elizabeth.