“My sister is coming next week for a few days,” said Anna. “She is very clever, and may help us.” Emilia was accordingly introduced to the Mice, but she was not very tolerant of them. Essay societies, she said, were out of date, and she thought the Rockquay young ladies a very country-town set. “You don’t know them, Emmie,” said Anna. “Gillian and Dolores are very remarkable girls, only--” “Only they are kept down by their mothers, I suppose. Is that the reason they don’t do anything but potter after essay societies and Sunday-schools like our little girls at Vale Leston? Why, I asked Gillian, as you call her, what they were doing about the Penitents’ Home, and she said her mother and Aunt Jane went to look after it, but never talked about it.” “You know they are all very young.” “Young indeed! How is one ever to be of any use if mothers and people are always fussing about one’s being young?” “One won’t always be so--” “They would think so, like the woman of a hundred years old, who said on her daughter’s death at eighty, ‘Ah, poor girl, I knew I never should rear her!’ How shall I get to see the Infirmary here?” “Miss Mohun would take you.” “Can’t I go without a fidgety old maid after me?” “I’ll tell you what I wish you would do, Emmie. Write an account of one of your hospital visits, or of the match-girls, for the Mouse-trap. Do! You know Gerald has written something for it.” “He! Why he has too much sense to write for your voluntary schools. Or it would be too clever and incisive for you. Ah! I see it was so by your face! What did he send you? Have you got it still?” “We have really a parody of his which is going in--The Girton Girl. Now, Emmie, won’t you? You have told me such funny things about your match-girls.” “I do not mean to let them be turned into ridicule by your prim, decorous swells. Why, I unfortunately told Fernan Brown one story--about their mocking old Miss Bruce with putting on imitation spectacles--and it has served him for a cheval de bataille ever since! Oh, my dear Anna, he gets more hateful than ever. I wish you would come back and divert his attention.” “Thank you.” “Don’t you think we could change? You could go and let Marilda fuss with you, now that Uncle Clem and Aunt Cherry are so well, and I could look after Adrian, and go to the Infirmary, and the penitents, and all that these people neglect; maybe I would write for the Mouse-trap, if Gerald does when he comes home.” Anna did not like the proposal, but she pitied Emilia, and cared for her enough to carry the scheme to her aunt. But Geraldine shook her head. The one thing she did not wish was to have Emmie riding, walking, singing, and expanding into philanthropy with Gerald, and besides, she knew that Emilia would never have patience to read to her uncle, or help Adrian in his preparation. “Do you really wish this, my dear?” she asked. “N--no, not at all; but Emmie does. Could you not try her?”