"Yes; now that mamma cannot attend much to the school and poor people, I
don't know what we should do without them. How different it was in old
Mr. May's time! I hope we shall get the Church set to rights now, when
papa is well enough to attend to it."

"It is high time, certainly," said Edmund; "our Church is almost a
disgrace to us, especially with the Arundel aisle, to show what our
ancestors did."

"No, not quite to us," said Marian; "you know papa would have done it
all long ago, if the idea had not vexed poor old Mr. May so much. But
Ranger! Ranger! where is Ranger, Edmund?"

Edmund whistled, and presently, with whirring, rushing wing, there flew
over the hedge beside them a covey of partridges, followed by Ranger's
eager bark. Marian's pony started, danced, and capered; Edmund watched
her with considerable anxiety, but she reined it in with a steady,
dexterous, though not a strong hand, kept her seat well, and rode on in
triumph, while Edmund exclaimed, "Capital, Marian!" Then looking back,
"What a shot that was!" he added in a sort of parenthesis, continuing,
"I am proud, Mayflower is not a bit too much for you now, though I think
we must have given her up if you had had another tumble."

"Oh, no, no, I do so delight in Mayflower, pretty creature!" said
Marian, patting her neck. "I like to feel that the creature I ride is
alive--not an old slug, like that animal which you are upon, Edmund."

"That is decidedly ungrateful of you, Marian, when you learnt to ride
upon this identical slug, and owe the safety of your neck to its quiet