“And welcome, sir, and thank you kindly besides; poor little dears, they have no one to look after them but me.  I daresay I am wrong sometimes, but I do my best—­I do my best.”

The curate thought she did according to her knowledge, but he lamented that two such exquisitely beautiful children, possessed of such natural gifts, should be left to the management of a vain old woman—­most vain—­though kindly and good-hearted—­giving kindness with pleasure, and receiving it with gratitude—­yet totally unfit to bring up a pair of beauties, who, of all the female sex, require the most discretion in the management.

“I wonder,” thought the Reverend Mr. Stokes—­“I wonder when our legislature will contrive to establish a school for mothers.  If girls are sent to school, the chances are that the contamination over which the teacher can have no control—­the contamination of evil girls—­renders them vicious; if, on the contrary, they are kept at home, the folly of their mothers makes them fools—­a pretty choice!” Mr. Stokes turned down a lane that ran parallel with the garden where the children went to school; and hearing Helen’s voice in loud dispute, he paused for a moment to ascertain the cause.

“I tell you,” said the little maid, “Rose may be what she likes, but I’ll be queen.”

“How unfit,” quoth the curate to himself—­“how utterly unfit is Mrs. Myles to manage Helen!” The good man paused again; and to the no small confusion of the little group, who had been making holiday under the shadow of a spreading apple-tree, suddenly entered amongst them, and read her a lecture, gently, kindly, and judicious.  Having thus performed what he conceived his duty, he walked on; but his progress was arrested by a little hand being thrust into his; and when he looked down, the beaming, innocent face of Rose Dillon was up-turned towards him.

“Do please, sir,” she said, “let Helen Marsh be queen of the game; if she is not, she won’t play with a bit of heart—­she won’t, indeed, sir.  She will play to be sure, but not with any heart.”

“I cannot unsay what I have said, little Rose,” he answered; “I cannot; it is better for her to play without heart, as you call it, than to have that heart too highly uplifted by play.”

Happy would it have been for Helen Marsh if she had always had a judicious friend to correct her dangerous ambition.  The good curate admonished the one, and brought forward the other, of the cousins; but what availed his occasional admonishing when counteracted by the weak flattery of Mrs. Myles?

CHAPTER II.