respects a shy man, and he clung to the people he knew best. When he was with the Thornleighs he was free from every shade of embarrassment--he knew them all so well (he thought); they were so kind to him--they understood him and his ways of thinking so completely (he believed). When he went to them it was like going home--entering into his family--a more genial family, and one more apt to understand, than he had ever known. And it was to the Thornleighs that Edgar allowed himself to speak most freely of his own wonderments and perplexities. “I look at you all with amazement,” he said. “I don’t disapprove of you.” (“How very nice of him,” interrupted Gussy.) “You look very pretty (“Thanks,” said Beatrice, making him a curtsey), and you are very pleasant. Of course, I don’t mean ladies in particular (“Oh, you savage,” ejaculated Mary, the second youngest, who was a little disposed to hold Helena’s views, but did not understand them in the very least), I mean everybody. All this is very nice. It is charming never to take any thought for the morrow, except which invitation one will accept, or rather which place one will go to, of all that one has accepted. The only thing is, what is the good of it all? It tires you so that you require nine months’ rest to refresh you, and get you up to the point of doing all this over again; and while you are doing it, you call heaven and earth to witness what a bore it is. Would it not be better to try some other kind of useful exertion now and then? Three months’ work in the fields, for instance, or as poor needlewomen, or even in one of those pretty shops----” “Oh, a shop! that is worse and worse; that is more frightful than ever. I should prefer the fields,” said Beatrice and Mary in a breath. “The fields are exposed to a great deal of rain and cold, drought and wet, frost, and all kinds of perils,” said Edgar; “and then they would spoil your complexions. Ask Lady Augusta; she would never let you do that. But these beautiful shops, you know, such as that you took me to--Smallgear or something; and then that one in Regent Street. Why, they are palaces; soft carpets under your feet, and great mirrors to display you in, and beautiful things to handle. I should think it rather nice to belong to one of those shops.” “You can’t possibly mean it?” cried Gussy, concerned for the credit of the man who was so generally assigned to her. “Fancy what an occupation it must be, turning over things to be pulled about by ladies who don’t know what to do with themselves otherwise, and never mean to buy.”