“Week days is week days,” she said oracularly. “We’ve got them to work in and to have a bit of fun as long as we’re young. Sundays I say nothing against church--as much as anyone pleases; and it’s a great thing to have the Abbey to go to, where you see everybody, if Wykeham the verger wasn’t such a brute. But, if I’m not to have my bit of fun, I’d rather be out of the world altogether. Now I just wish Mr. Law were passing this way, for there’s the end of Lady Araminta in the _Family ’Erald_, and it is very exciting, and she won’t hear of marrying the Earl, let alone the Duke, but gives all her money and everything she has to the man of her heart.” “The baronet!” cried Kate and ’Liza in one breath. “I always knew that was how it was going to be.” Even Ellen, wise as she was, changed colour, and looked up eagerly. It was Polly who took in that representative of all that the world calls letters and cultivation, to these girls. Ellen looked wistfully at the drawer in which the treasure was hidden. “I will read it out if you like,” she said somewhat timidly. “I can’t get on with this till the trimming is ready.” Thus even the Church party was vanquished by the charms of Art. That evening the Captain again paid them a visit. It was not often that he came two days in succession, and Emma, who was the least important of all, was very impatient of his appearance, notwithstanding the saucy speech she had made to Law. In her heart she thought there was no comparison between the father and son. The Captain was an old man. He had no business to come at all, chatting and making his jokes; it was a shame to see him turning up night after night. She wondered how Miss Despard liked to have him always out. Emma regarded Miss Despard with great interest and awe. She wondered when she met her in the street, as happened sometimes, what she would say _if she knew_. And Emma wondered, with a less warm thrill of personal feeling, but yet with much heat and sympathetic indignation, what Miss Despard would think if she knew of Polly. She would hate her, and that would be quite natural. Fancy having Polly brought in over your head in the shape of a stepmother! and if Emma herself felt indignant at such an idea, what must Miss Despard do who was a lady, and used to be the mistress? It made the girl’s heart ache to think that she would have to close the door upon Law again, for it would never do to have the father and son together. Polly, on the contrary, bore a look of triumph on her countenance. She pushed her chair aside a little as Emma had done for Law, thus making room for him beside her, and she said, with a delighted yet nervous toss of her mountain of hair, “Ah, Captain, back again! Haven’t you got anything better to do than to come after a lot of girls that don’t want you? Do we want him, Kate?” to which playful question Kate replied in good faith, No, she did not want him; but, with a friendly sense of what was