Was not this a pleasure? Marian sat up in her dressing-gown that night to write the prayers in her very clearest writing, for she knew Lionel never liked to read what was not large and clear, and she guessed that late in the evening, after all his lessons, he would have too many "green and blue monsters," as he used to call them, before his eyes, to be willing to give them more work than he could possibly help. She thought her mamma would have been very uneasy if she had heard of those green and blue monsters, and she wondered whether Mrs. Lyddell knew or cared about them, but Lionel was one of the least regarded of the family, and nobody but Johnny ever thought it worth while to make a trifling complaint to her. It was far worse that Lionel should be left to obtain a form of private prayer by such a chance as this. Alas! alas for them all! She was too unhappy to think more of Lionel, and in the midst of earnest prayers for Gerald, she cried herself asleep. Poor child, she was too miserable all the next day to give us any pleasure in contemplating her. CHAPTER VIII. "Too soon the happy child His nook of homeward thought will change; For life's seducing wild; Too son his altered day-dreams show This earth a boundless space, With sunbright pleasures to and fro, Coursing in joyous race." _Christian Year_. A couple of weeks had passed away, and Marian was beginning to feel rather more accustomed to the absence of Gerald and Lionel, and to find pleasure in the letters which spoke of her brother taking a good place, and from which it did not appear that he disliked school so much as she had feared. Still she could not but miss him grievously, and feel the want of some one to cling to her, bring his troubles to her, and watch for moments of private conference. Her days seemed to follow each other without animation or interest; and if it had not been for some of her lessons, and for his letters and Agnes Wortley's, she felt as if she could have done nothing but yawn till the holidays. One day, as the young ladies were returning from a walk in the park, they saw a carriage standing at their own door,--too frequent an occurrence, as Marian thought, to call for such warm interest as Clara expressed. Yet even Marian grew eager when she heard her cousins exclaim that there was a coronet on it,--a Viscount's coronet. They were now close to the house, just about to ring, when the door opened, the visitor came out, and at that moment Marian sprang forward with a joyful face, but without a word. The lady held out both hands, and standing on the top of the steps of the door, she drew Marian up to her, and kissed her on each cheek with great eagerness, completely regardless of the spectators.