Sophia, your attitude and manner and words distress me considerably. But I must speak to you again. I am busy now over a most important matter. I have just discovered——”

“A gold mine on your estate?”

“No; something fifty times more valuable—a new rendering——”

“Of what, may I ask?”

“‘The noblest meter ever moulded by the lips of man.’ Bowen is quite wrong in his translation; I am about to prove it. I allude to Virgil’s Æneid.”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Miss Tredgold, “is the man staring mad? Now, my dear fellow, you have got to put up with me. I can tell you plainly that it will be no treat to live with you. If it were not for my sister I would leave this house and let you and your family go your own way to destruction; but as Alice was so fond of me, and did her best for me when I was a little girl, I mean to do my best for your children.”

“But in what way, Sophia? I told you I was poor. I am poor. I cannot afford a governess. Verena can darn quite nicely, and she knows a little about plain needlework. She turned a skirt of her own a month ago; her work seemed quite creditable, for I did not notice it one way or the other.”

“Oh, you man—you man!” said Miss Tredgold.

“And the other children are also learning to use the needle; and most of them can read, for all the novels that I happen to possess have been removed from the bookshelves. The girls can read, they can write, and they can use their needles. They are thoroughly happy, and they are healthy. They do not feel the heat of summer or the cold of winter. The food is plain, and perhaps not over-abundant, but they are satisfied with it. They don’t worry me much. In short, it is only fair to say that I am not well enough off to keep you here. I cannot possibly give you the comforts you require. I should be glad, therefore, my dear Sophia, if you would be kind enough to leave The Dales.”

“Now listen to me, Henry. I have resolved to stay, and only force will turn me out. My heavier luggage is coming by the carrier to-morrow. I brought a small trunk in that awful little conveyance which you sent to meet me. As to the money question, it needn’t trouble you, for I shall pay for all extras which my presence requires. As to luxuries, I am indifferent to them. But I mean the girls to eat their food like ladies, and I mean the food to be well cooked; and also everything in the house shall be clean, and there shall be enough furniture in the rooms for the ordinary requirements of ordinary gentlefolks. I shall stay here for at least three months, and if at the end of that time you do not say to me, ‘Sophia, I can never thank you enough for what you have done,’ I shall be surprised. Now I have stated exactly the position of things, and, my dear Henry, you are welcome to go back to your work. You can study your beloved Virgil and gloat over your discovery; but for goodness’ sake come to dinner to-night looking like a gentleman.”

“My wardrobe is a little in abeyance, Sophia. I mean that I—I have not put on an evening coat for years.”

“You probably have one at the back of nowhere,” said Miss Tredgold in a contemptuous tone. “But, anyhow, put on the best you have got. Believe me, I have not come to this house to sit down with my hands before me. I have come to work, to renovate, to restore, to build up. Not another word, Henry. I have put the matter into a nutshell, and you and your children must learn to submit to the arrival of Sophia Tredgold.”

At these words the good lady unlocked the door and stepped out.

As she walked down the passage she heard the quick trampling of many feet, and it occurred to her that some of the girls must have been listening at the keyhole.

“I can’t allow that sort of thing again,” she said to herself. “But now—shall I take notice?”

She stood for a moment thinking. The color came into her cheeks and her eyes looked bright.

“For my sister’s sake I will put up with a good deal,” was her final comment; and then she went into the hall.

There was a wide old hall leading to the front stairs, and in this hall now stood the good child Penelope. She had brought in a quantity of fresh grasses, and had a piteous and beseeching expression on her face. Miss Tredgold took no notice of her. She stood by the open hall door and looked out.

“Might be made a pretty place,” she said aloud.

Then she turned to go upstairs, sighing as she did so. Penelope echoed the sigh in a most audible manner. Miss Tredgold was arrested by the sound, and looked down.

“Ah, little girl!” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought perhaps you’d like me to help you,” said Penelope. “I wor waiting for you to come out of Pad’s room.”

“Don’t use that hideous word ‘wor.’ W-a-s, was. Can you spell?”

“No; and I don’t want to,” said Penelope.

“We’ll see about that. In the meantime, child, can you take me to my room?”

“May I hold of your hand?” said Penelope.

“May you hold my hand, not of my hand. Certainly not. You may go on in front of me. You have got clearly to understand—— But what did you say your name was?”

“Penelope.”

“You must clearly understand, Penelope, that I do not pet children. I expect them to be good without sugar-plums.”

Now, Penelope knew that sugar-plums were delicious. She had heard of them, and at Christmas-time she used to dream of them, but very few had hitherto come into her life. She now looked eagerly at Miss Tredgold.

“If I are good for a long time without them, will you give me two or three?” she asked.

Miss Tredgold gave a short, grim laugh.

“We’ll see,” she said. “I never make rash promises. Oh! so this is my room.”

She looked around her.

“No carpet,” she said aloud; “no curtains; no pictures on the walls. A deal table for a dressing-table, the muslin covering much the worse for dirt and wear. Hum! You do live plain at The Dales.”

“Oh, yes; don’t us?” said Penelope. “And your room is much the handsomest of all the rooms. We call it very handsome. If you wor to see our rooms——”

“Were to see——”

“Yes, were to see,” repeated Penelope, who found this constant correction very tiresome.

“And may I ask,” exclaimed Miss Tredgold suddenly, not paying any heed to the little girl’s words, “what on earth is that in the blue mug?”

She marched up to the dressing-table. In the center was a large blue mug of very common delft filled with poor Penelope’s grasses.

“What horror is this?” she said. “Take it away at once, and throw those weeds out.”

At that moment poor Penelope very nearly forsook her allegiance to Aunt Sophia. She ran downstairs trembling. In the hall she was received by a bevy of sisters.

“Well, Pen, and so you have bearded the lion! You took her to her room, did you? And what did she say? Did she tell you when she was going away?”

“Yes, did she?” came from Verena’s lips; and Pauline’s eager eyes, and the eyes of all the other children, asked the same question.

Penelope gave utterance to a great sigh.

“I thought I’d be the goodest of you all,” she said. “I maded up my mind that I just would; but I doesn’t like Aunt Sophia, and I think I’ll be the naughtiest.”

“No, you little goose; keep on being as good as you can. She can’t possibly stay long, for we can’t afford it,” said Verena.

“She’ll stay,” answered Penelope. “She have made up her mind. She throwed away my lovely grasses; she called them weeds, my darlings that I did stoop so much to pick, and made my back all aches up to my neck. And she said she hated