and a large book of prints of animals was on a chair where he could
reach it.

A larger table was covered with needle-work, shreds of lining,
scissors, tapes, and Ellen's red work-box; and she herself sat beside
it, a very nice-looking girl of about seventeen, tall and slim, her
lilac dress and white collar fitting beautifully, her black apron
sitting nicely to her trim waist, and her light hair shining, like
the newly-wound silk of the silk-worm, round her pleasant face; where
the large, clear, well-opened blue eyes, and the contrast of white
and red on the cheek, were a good deal like poor Alfred's, and gave
an air of delicacy.

Their father had been, as their mother said, 'the handsomest coachman
who ever drove to St. James's;' but he had driven thither once too
often; he had caught his death of cold one bitter day when Lady Jane
Selby was obliged to go to a drawing-room, and had gone off in a deep
decline fourteen years ago, when the youngest of his five children
was not six weeks old.

The Selby family were very kind to Mrs. King, who, besides her
husband's claims on them, had been once in service there; and
moreover, had nursed Miss Jane, the little heiress, Ellen's foster-
sister. By their help she had been able to use her husband's savings
in setting up a small shop, where she sold tea, tobacco and snuff,
tape, cottons, and such little matters, besides capital bread of her
own baking, and various sweet-meats, the best to the taste of her own
cooking, the prettiest to the eye brought from Elbury. Oranges too,
and apples, shewed their yellow or rosy cheeks at her window in their
season; and there was sometimes a side of bacon, displaying under the