the room, she continued: "Which do you recommend, cousin?"

"Fidelia is the most reasonable, madam," said Aurelia.

"But not the prettiest, I trust. She is too like her father, with
those dark brows, and her eyes have a look deep enough to frighten
one. They will frighten away the men, if she do not grow out of it."

Here the door burst open, and, without any preliminary bow, Master
Archer flew in, crying out "Mamma, mamma, we _must_ stay here. The
galleries are so long, and it is such a place for whoop-hide!"

His sisters were following his bad example, and rushing in with equal
want of ceremony, but though their mother held the boy unchecked on
her knee, Aurelia saw how she could frown. "You forget yourselves,"
she said.

Amoret looked ready to cry, but at a sign from their young instructress,
they backed and curtsied, and their mother reviewed them; Letitia was
the most like the Delavies, but also the smallest, while Amoret was on
the largest scale and would pair best with her brother, who besides
loudly proclaimed his preference for her, and she was therefore elected
to the honour of being taken home. Aurelia was requested as a favour
to bid the children's woman have the child's clothes ready repaired to
her own room.

The little wardrobe could only be prepared by much assistance from
Aurelia herself, and she could attend to nothing else; while the
children were all devoted to Archer, and she only heard their voices
in the distance, till--as she was dressing for her _tete-a-tete_