absurdly old-fashioned cut of that ugly mantle.

The two who talked so earnestly were women--women with kind and large
hearts, and their theme was engrossing.

Mrs. Ellsworthy bound herself by no promises, but she contrived to
send the governess away with a heart full of hope.

Mrs. Ellsworthy had never yet called on any of the people who lived in
the straggling village of Rosebury. Therefore, when her carriage, with
its prancing horses and perfect appointments, drew up at the
Mainwarings' door, the old-fashioned little place felt quite a flutter
through its heart.

Poppy Jenkins, the laundress's pretty daughter, came out into the
street, and stared with all her eyes. The doctor's wife, who lived at
the opposite side of the street, gazed furtively and enviously from
behind her muslin blinds. The baker and the butcher neglected their
usual morning orders; and Hannah, the Mainwarings' servant, felt
herself, as she expressed it, all of a tremble from top to toe.

"Let me brush your hair, Miss Primrose," she said, when she had at
last succeeded in inducing her young lady to dry her tears; "and are
your hands nice and clean, Miss Primrose? and your collar, is it neat?
It's very condescending of Mrs. Ellsworthy to call."

"I wonder what she has come about," said Primrose; "she never knew my
mother."

Primrose felt at that moment the great lady's visit to be an