"Do, my dear," said Mrs. Desmond. "I wish Helen were more like your girl, Susan," she went on as Agatha left the room. "Agatha is one in a thousand," returned Mrs. Bayden, her sharp voice growing almost soft. "Yes," observed Mr. Bayden plaintively. "If all our children were but like her! There's Harold now. Would you believe it, I met him in the garden early in the afternoon, and I spoke to him quite gently, and he rushed past me saying, 'I hate you all, I hate you all!' Such terrible language to use to a father." "I'm afraid that it is all your own fault, Richard," returned Mrs. Desmond unsympathetically. "You spoil your children. I positively shudder to think of what the world will come to when--" "But you yourself admit that Agatha is all that can be desired," interrupted Mrs. Bayden impatiently. She was by no means pleased that her husband should expose Harold's naughtiness to an outsider. "Agatha seems a good girl," replied Mrs. Desmond coldly. "She needs forming, of course; but considering that she has spent all her life in a country village one must not blame her for that. As for Harold, why don't you send him to school?" "Because, Margaret, I can't afford it at present," said Mrs. Bayden bluntly. "An excellent reason, my dear Susan. It is a pity that you can't manage, though, to discipline him at home. Why don't you take him in hand, Richard?" Mr. Bayden sighed deeply and looked imploringly at his sister-in-law. "How can I?" he said. "My children are so dear to me. And then I have other cares. The parish--" "Oh! by the way, talking of the parish," interrupted Mrs. Desmond, "things seem to be very badly managed here. Two different families have been at the Grange begging since we came. There can't be any poverty here, and besides--Why, Helen, what have you been doing to yourself?" This last was addressed to her stepdaughter, who had been marched down by Agatha, and who was now brought summarily into the drawing-room. "I--I have only been in the garden," said Helen, painfully conscious of tumbled hair, soiled hands, and torn frock. "Only in the garden! What are those green marks on your dress?" "I'm sure I don't know," said Helen, beginning to brush herself vigorously and making bad worse. "You don't know! It looks to me as if you had been climbing _trees_." "Oh, no! indeed I haven't," said Helen, thankful to be able to deny so terrible an accusation. "What have you been doing, then?" "I--I only climbed a wall." "Climbed a wall! What for?" "To sit there." "This is the child for whom no expense has been spared," observed Mrs. Desmond tragically to her sister. "Dancing lessons, drilling lessons, deportment, this last especially, have been dinned into her from morning till night. And yet your Agatha knows how to behave herself better than she does." There was a pause. Mrs. Desmond indulged in a deep sigh, and the Baydens, a little nettled at this half-contemptuous reference to Agatha, remained silent.