‘Hear, hear! That’s right, Fergy man! Couldn’t be better!’ cried Harry, and there was a general acclamation, which inspired gentle Mysie with the fear that her motherless cousin might feel the contrast, and, though against rules, she whispered-- ‘She will make you like one of us.’ ‘That wasn’t what I meant,’ returned Dolores, a little contemptuously. ‘What did you mean?’ said Mysie. ‘Why, you’ve no classes, nor lectures, nor master, and only just a mere daily governess.’ Dolores did not mean this to be heard beyond her neighbour, but Mysie demanded-- ‘What, do you want to be doing lessons all day long?’ ‘No, but good governesses never are daily!’ ‘That’s a pity,’ said Gillian, turning round on her. ‘Perhaps you don’t know that Miss Vincent has a First Class Cambridge Certificate in everything, and is daily, because she likes to live with her mother.’ ‘I think,’ added Lady Merrifield, with a smile, ‘that Dolores has been in the way of seeing more clever people, and getting superior teaching of some kind, but we will do the best we can for her, and try not to let her miss many advantages.’ Dolores felt a little abashed, and decidedly angry at being put in the wrong. The elders kindly turned away the general attention from her. There was a great deal of merry family fun going on, which was quite like a new language to her. Fergus and Primrose wanted to go out in search of blackberries. Gillian undertook to drive them in the cart, but as the donkey had once or twice refused to cross a little stream of water that traversed the road, the brothers foretold that she would ignominiously come back again. ‘Gill and water are perilous!’ observed Hal. ‘Jack’s not here,’ said Gillian; ‘besides, it is down, not up the hill, and I’m sure I don’t want to draw a pail of water.’ ‘No--Sancho will do that.’ ‘The gong will sound and sound, buzz and roar,’ said Wilfred. ‘No Gill! no little ones! We shall send out and find them stuck fast in the lane, Sancho with his feet spread out wide, Gill with three or four sticks lying broken on the road round her, the kids reduced to eating blackberries like the children in the wood.’ ‘Don’t Fred,’ said Gillian. ‘You’ll frighten them.’ ‘Little donkeys!’ said Wilfred. ‘If they were, we shouldn’t want Sancho,’ said Val. It was not a very sublime bit of wit, but there was a great laugh at it all round the table. Val and Fergus declared they would go too, till they heard that Nurse Halfpenny said she would not let the little ones go out without her to tear their clothes to pieces. Every one unanimously declared that would be no fun at all, and turned to mamma to beg her to forbid nurse to come out and spoil everything. ‘That’s just her view,’ said mamma, laughing; ‘she thinks you spoil everything.’ ‘Oh, that’s clothes! Spoiling fun is worse.’ ‘But were you really going with the old Halfpenny, Gill?’ said Mysie, turning to her.