"Come, Jenny, don't you bite!" put in Lady Betty. "Cupid has set you a better example than so." "I'll not bite Clarissa, I thank you," was Mrs Jane's rather spiteful answer. "It would want more than one fast-day to bring me to that. Couldn't fancy the paint. And don't think I could digest the patches." Lady Betty appeared to enjoy Mrs Jane's very uncivil speeches; while Cupid's mistress remained untouched by them, being one of those persons who affect not to hear anything to which they do not choose to respond. "Well, Rhoda, child," said Lady Betty, as the coach neared home, "'tis no good, I guess, to bid you drink tea on a fast-day?" "Oh, but I am coming, my Lady Betty," answered Rhoda, briskly. "I mean to drink a dish with every one of you." "I shan't give you anything to eat," interpolated Mrs Jane. "Never do to be guzzling on a fast-day. You won't get any sugar from me, neither." "Never mind, Mrs Jane," said Rhoda. "Mrs Dolly will give me something, I know. And I shall visit her first." Mrs Dorothy assented by a benevolent smile. "I hope, child, you will not forget it is a fast-day," said Madam, gravely, "and not go about to divert yourself in an improper manner." "Oh no, Madam!" said Rhoda, drawing in her horns. No sooner was dinner over--and as Rhoda had predicted, there was nothing except boiled potatoes and bread and butter--than Rhoda pounced on Phoebe, and somewhat authoritatively bade her come upstairs. Madam had composed herself in her easy chair, with the "Eikon Basilike" in her hand. "Will Madam not be lonely?" asked Phoebe, timidly, as she followed Rhoda. "Lonely? Oh, no! She'll be asleep in a minute," said Rhoda. "I thought she was going to read," suggested Phoebe. "She fancies so," said Rhoda, laughing. "I never knew her try yet but she went to sleep directly." Unlocking a closet door which stood in their bedroom, and climbing on a chair to reach the top shelf, Rhoda produced a small volume bound in red sheepskin, which she introduced to Phoebe's notice with a rather grandiloquent air. "Now, Phoebe! There's my Book of Poems!" Phoebe opened the book, and her eye fell on a few lines of faint, delicate writing, on the fly-leaf. "To Rhoda Peveril, with her Aunt Margaret's love." "Oh, you have an aunt!" said Phoebe. "I have two somewhere," said Rhoda. "They are good for nothing. They never give me anything." Phoebe looked up with a rather surprised air. "They seem to do, sometimes," she observed, pointing to the book. "Well, that one did," answered Rhoda; "one or two little things like that; but she is dead. The others are just a pair of spiteful old cats." Phoebe's look of astonishment deepened. "They must be very different from my aunt, then. I have only one, but I would not call her names for the world. She loves me, and I love her."