"Quite in the rough, Lady, as I told you," said Mr. Hamley, shifting his feet noisily.

"She will look better when she is better dressed,"

suggested Dora amiably. looks tired and tumbled.

will be better."

"She is untidy now, and

To-morrow perhaps she

"There you are out, Dora," said Mr. Hamley; "she'll be no better to your liking to-morrow than she is to-day. I tell you what it is, Lady," turning to his wife, "you've got your hands full with that young woman, and your work's cut for you and no mistake."

"I shall be able to make her all I could wish. She is my own niece," said Mrs. Hamley coldly; and Mr. Hamley was too well drilled not to be able to note signs with accuracy.

"No doubt, no doubt," he said, spreading out his large hands to the fire. "At all events"-with his grand manner; the manner he put on when he wanted to impress women with the consciousness of his bigness and manliness and strength and magnanimity—“at all events this is her home, poor young lady, and we must do the best we can for her. What we've done for Dora we'll do for her; and I'll never grudge the outlay. Whether she'll turn out as good a job as Dora is another matter"-here

he smiled on his fair cousin; "but we'll try, Lady, we'll try. Faint heart never won fair lady, and we can't top the hills if we sit down at the foot."

"You speak as if she was a savage," said Mrs. Hamley tartly.

"You might have made a worse guess, Lady," replied the brewer composedly.

CHAPTER VIII.

FENCED IN.

MILLTOWN was eminently a residential place.

Visitors were discouraged, and the enterprising or impecunious householders who ventured to exhibit "Apartments" in their windows were not wellregarded by the gentry, who seemed to regard such an announcement as a personal impertinence, as well as a liberty, for which the householders deserved reproof. To let lodgings to strangers was held to be a base sacrifice of Milltown respectability to filthy lucre; and gentlefolks with a good balance at their bankers are generally strict in their estimate of the mill wherein their poorer brethren grind their

corn.

Being thus residential, nothing was done to attract the outlying public. There was no parade, no evening band, no pier for the display of pretty boots and neat ankles on windy days, no Rooms,

and next to no baths. The inhabitants thought it indelicate to bathe; so there were only two machines-one for the ladies, painted blue and white, and one for the gentlemen, painted green and black; and even these the proprietor said he was working at a sacrifice and on the ground of public spirit.

Though a sea-side place, the sea was only a passive adjunct, not an active part of Milltown existence. A land-locked placid bay, shallow and barren, it was artistically valuable on account of its colour and the changing lights lying on its cliffs; but nearly worthless for fishing and very little used for boating. Only one house in the place had a yacht in the basin within the breakwater. This was the Water Lily, a pretty little toy belonging to the Lowes; young Sydney Lowe, with his father the Colonel, generally contriving to have all they wished to have, though by no means wealthy people; indeed, being the most out-at-elbows of all the Milltown gentry. But the more nearly insolvent a certain kind of man is the more he contrives to spend on his pleasures. Colonel Lowe, of Cragfoot, was this kind of man, and his son Sydney was like him. Being thickly inhabited y the gentry, every rood of land had its exclusive

owner and its artificial as well as natural value. The very cliffs were fenced off against trespassers; perpetual attempts were made to stop old-established rights of way, which sometimes succeeded, if at others they failed when some man of more public spirit than his neighbours was personally inconvenienced; and the open paths across the fields, which were inalienable, were grudgingly marked off by lines of thorns, with fierce warnings of prosecution should the narrow strip be departed from ; while all the gates were padlocked and the stiles made unnecessarily high and difficult. It was a jealous "this is mine and you have no right here" kind of system, that was not good for the higher feeling of the people.

The country was noted for its garden-like neatness. Every hedge and bank for miles round was trimmed and combed like a croquet lawn. No wild flowers were allowed on the Milltown public way-sides; no trailing growths, rich and luxuriant, to enchant an artist and distress the highway board and private gardeners, twined and hung about the well-clipped hedges of thorn and privet. If you wanted to study botany you must go some five miles or so inland, where a certain stretch of unreclaimed land gave the growths that flourish in