And the chill wintry wind that is moaning and creeping about the leafless trees, echoes eerily, "Who?"
"If you please, Miss Ullen," says Dorley, appearing, "I've got a nosegay for 'ee."
I take the scanty little bouquet with a very red face, and a not very gracious "Thank you."
"Mebbe that's your young man, Miss Ullen?" he says, in a stage whisper. "An' it seems ony yesterday I saw you a-dangling from that quarinder tree with yer pantaloons———"
"That will do, Dorley!" I say hastily, and he shuffles away.
"What was the end of the story?" asks Paul, inquisitively; "your———"
"Dorley does not know his manners!" I say with dignity; we will not talk about him!"
We go and look at the rabbits, Basan's now, not Jack's, soft, helpless, pretty creatures, whose bodies, alas! we too often nourish to feed our greedy cat.
"I should like a good many pets at The Towers," I say, as we move on again. "Will you read prayers, Paul?"
"I!" says my lover, looking considerably astonished; "well, no, I think not, Nell."
"Then I must. What made me think of it was the canaries."
"The canaries! what on earth have they got to do with it?"
"When papa begins to read they begin to sing, and then he gets in a rage, and altogether———"
"Hum!" says Paul, "prayers and temper seem to go together. Don't you think we had better do without both?"
"Oh, Paul!"
"Look here, little woman!" he says, "I may as well tell you now, to save bother hereafter, that I don't believe any amount of praying by rote does a man a vestige of good. Let him set to work to mend his morals and weed his heart first, and keep the
