Janet was granny’s child.  She had slept in her room ever since Allen was born, and trotted after her in her “housewifeskep,” and the sense of being protected was passing into the sense of protection.  Before she could be answered, however, there was an announcement.  Friends were apt to drop in to coffee and talk in the evening, on the understanding that certain days alone were free-—people chiefly belonging to a literary, scientific, and artist set, not Bohemian, but with a good deal of quiet ease and absence of formality.

This friend had just returned from Asia Minor, and had brought an exquisite bit of a Greek frieze, of which he had become the happy possessor, knowing that Mrs. Joseph Brownlow would delight to see it, and mayhap to copy it.

For Carey’s powers had been allowed to develop themselves; Mrs. Brownlow having been always housekeeper, she had been fain to go on with the studies that even her preparation for governess-ship had not rendered wearisome, and thus had become a very graceful modeller in clay-—her favourite pursuit-—when her children’s lessons and other occupations left her free to indulge in it.  The history of the travels, and the account of the discovery, were given and heard with all zest, and in the midst others came in—-a barrister and his wife to say good-bye before the circuit, a professor with a ticket for the gallery at a scientific dinner, two medical students, who had been made free of the house because they were nice lads with no available friends in town.

It was all over by half-past ten, and the trio were alone together.  “How amusing Mr. Leslie is!” said the young Mrs. Brownlow.  “He knows how describe as few people do.”

“Did you see Janet listening to him,” said her grandmother, “with her brows pulled down and her eyes sparkling out under them, wanting to devour every word?”

“Yes,” returned the Doctor, “I saw it, and I longed to souse that black head of hers with salt water.  I don’t like brains to grow to the contempt of healthful play.”

“People never know when they are well off!  I wonder what you would have said if you had had a lot of stupid dolts, boys always being plucked, &c.”

“Don’t plume yourself too soon, Mother Carey; only one chick has gone through the first ordeal.”

“And if Allen did, Bobus will.”

“Allen is quite as clever as Bobus, granny, if—-” eagerly said the mother.

“If-—” said the father; “there’s the point.  If Allen has the stimulus, he will do well.  I own I am particularly pleased with his success, because perseverance is his weak point.”

“Carey kept him up to it,” said granny.  “I believe his success is quite as much her work as his own.”

“And the question is, how will he get on without his mother to coach him ?”

“Now you know you are not one bit uneasy, papa!” cried his wife, indignantly.  “But don’t you think we might let Janet have her will for just these ten days?  There can’t be any real danger for her with grandmamma, and I should be happier about granny.”