'Such numbers! Such good purposes! But how can I give?' 'Cannot you give at least a guinea?' asked Mary, after hearing some. 'I do not know whether in this position a small sum in the list is not more disadvantageous than nothing at all. Besides, I know nothing of the real merits. I must ask Hailes. Ah! and here is Emma, I thought that she would be a little impatient. She says she shall let her house for the winter, and thinks of going to London or to Brighton, where she may have masters for the girls.' 'Oh, I thought you meant them to go to a good school?' 'So I do, if I can get Emma's consent; but I doubt her choosing to part with Ida. She wants to come here.' 'I suppose we ought to have her?' 'Yes, but not immediately. I do not mean to neglect her--at least, I do hope to do all that is right; but I think you ought to have a fair start here before she comes, so that we will invite her for Christmas, and then we can arrange about Ida and Constance.' 'Dear little Connie, I hope she is as nice a little girl as she used to be!' 'With good training, I think, she will be; and the tutor gives me good accounts of Herbert in this letter.' 'Shall we have him here on Sunday week?' 'Yes, I am very anxious to see him. I hope his master gives him more religious instruction than he has ever had, poor boy!' Though not brilliant or playful, Lord and Lady Northmoor had, it may be perceived, no lack of good sense in their strange new surroundings. It was hard not to feel like guests on sufferance, and next morning, a Sunday, was wet. However, under their waterproofs and umbrellas trudging along, they felt once more, as Mary said, like themselves, as if they had escaped from their keepers. Nobody on the way had the least idea who the two cloaked figures were, and when they crept into the seat nearest the door they were summarily ejected by a fat, red-faced man, who growled audibly, 'You've no business in my pew!' However, with the words, 'Beg your pardon,' they stepped out with a little amusement in their eyes, when a spruce young woman sprang up from the opposite pew, with a scandalised whisper-- 'Mr. Ruddiman, it's his Lordship! Allow me, my Lord--your own seat--' And she marshalled them up to the choir followed closely by Mr. Ruddiman, ruddier than ever, and butcher all over, in a perfect agony of apology, which Lord Northmoor in vain endeavoured to suppress or silence, till, when the guide had pointed to a handsome heavy carved seat with elaborate cushions, he gave a final gasp of, 'You'll not remember it in the custom, my Lord,' and departed, leaving his Lordship almost equally scarlet with annoyance at the place and time of the demonstration, though, happily, the clergyman had not yet appeared, in his long and much-tumbled surplice.