And happy? There was not seemingly a happier girl in the house. Crowding new interests had driven into the background, for the time, the demands of conscience; and Rotha was one of those people whose cup of life is a large one; capacities of heart and intellect alike wide in their possibilities, but if satisfied, making existence very rich. She was quiet enough in manner, never forgetting her beloved model; yet eye and lip and varying colour, and the involuntary movement of head and hand, and foot too, testified to the glad growing life of her soul. Mrs. Mowbray saw it with perpetual satisfaction; it got to be a habit with her that her eye sought and rested on that one unmistakeably honest and loyal member of her family. And Rotha's eye never met hers but there came a sparkle and a look of love into the young face. All day was a delight now to the girl; beginning with the morning prayers, which to be sure she loved mostly because she heard Mrs. Mowbray's voice in them. Then came breakfast; bright and cheery, with the hope and the work of the day in prospect, and a lively, pretty, pleasant table and company in possession. It was not like school; it was a large family; where all arrangements and supplies were as in the best appointed private house, and the only rules that reigned were the rules of good manners. Then came the brisk walk in the bracing morning air; and then, study. Some lesson hours were particularly interesting to Rotha. Latin she did not like, but French she took to kindly; and Madame Bonton told madame with a satisfied nod of her head, that Miss Carpenter was "not a soap bubble",--high praise, which only a few of the girls ever attained. Among her schoolmates Rotha made no particular friends. Some of them asked captiously who she was? others remarked critically that she thought herself too good looking; others declared enviously that she was a "favourite." Rotha did not take to any of them; made no confident of any of them; and was felt by most of them to be somehow uncongenial. Those who saw most of her felt this most decidedly. She presently was out of favour with all her roommates.