easiest in morals, the least Puritanical. It was not easy to shock Bice, but it was not at all difficult to shock Jock, brought up as he was in the highest sentiments under the wing of MTutor, who believed in moral influence. But the fashion of the intercourse held between these two, was very remarkable in its way. They were like brother and sister, without being brother and sister. They were strangers to each other, yet living in the most entire intimacy, and likely to be parted for ever to-morrow. They were of the same age, yet the girl was, in experience of life, a world in advance of the boy, who, notwithstanding, had the better of her in a thousand ways. In short, they were a paradox, such as youth, more or less, is always, and the careless close companionship that grew up between them was at once the most natural and the most strange alliance. They told each other everything by degrees, without being at all aware of the nature of their mutual confidence; Bice revealing to Jock the conditions on which she was to be brought out in England, and Jock to Bice the unusual features of his own and his sister's position, to the unbounded astonishment and scepticism of each. "Beautiful?" said Jock, drawing a long breath. "But beautiful's not a thing you can go in for, like an exam: You're born so, or you're born not so; and you know you're not--I mean, you know you're---- Well, it isn't your fault. Are you going to be sent away for just being--not pretty?" "I told you," said the girl, with a little impatience. "Being pretty is of no consequence. I am pretty, of course," she added regretfully. "But it is only if I turn out beautiful that she will take the trouble. And at sixteen, I am told, one cannot yet know." "But--" cried Jock with a sort of consternation, "you don't mind, do you? I don't mean anything unkind, you know; I don't think it matters--and I am sure it isn't your fault; you are not even--good-looking," candour compelled the boy to say, as to an honest comrade with whom sincerity was best. "Ah!" cried Bice, with a little excitement. "Do you think so? Then perhaps there is more hope." Jock was confounded by this utterance, and he began to feel that he had been uncivil. "I don't mean," he said, "that you are not--I mean that it is not of the least consequence. What does it matter? I am sure you are clever, which is far better. I think you could get up anything faster than most fellows if you were to try." "Get up! What does that mean? And when I tell you that it does matter to me--oh much,--very much!" she cried. "When you are beautiful, everything is before you--you marry, you have whatever you wish, you become a great lady; only to be pretty--that does nothing for you. Ugly, however," said the girl reflectively; "if I am ugly, then there is some hope."