have been to a first-rate school, and have read your Roman history and all that, haven't you?"

"Not much, I'm afraid, Uncle Jo."

"You have read about Lucretia, and Portia, and the mother of the Gracchi" (pronounced "Gratch-I;" for Jo's instruction had been chiefly taken in by the eye rather than the ear, in the shape of miscellaneous gleanings from his own stock-in-trade), "and other distinguished women of classical times, whose virtues were, in my opinion, not wholly unconnected with bounce?"

Mary laughed and nodded.

"Well, allow me to tell you that there are Englishwomen at the present day whom I consider far superior, in all that makes a real good woman, to any Roman or Grecian of them all. Englishwomen to whom bounce in every form is foreign and obnoxious. Englishwomen who do good by stealth and never blush to find it Fame, because Fame is a great deal too busy with rascals and hussies ever to trouble herself about them! Your grandmother, Mrs. Sarah Dobbs, whom I'm proud to call my friend, is one of those women. And what's more—and I'll have you bear it in mind, Miranda Cheffington—I believe you'd be puzzled to find her equal in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America—not to mention Australasia and the 'ole of the islands in the Pacific Ocean."

With that, Mr. Weatherhead walked gravely out; his nose somewhat redder than usual, and his eyes glistening.

CHAPTER X.

About a year before that dinner-party at which May Cheffington had made her début in Oldchester society, Mrs. Hadlow had begun to think it probable that Theodore Bransby might wish to marry her daughter, and to consider the desirability of his doing so. On the whole she did not disapprove the prospect. Constance was very handsome, but she was also very poor. Her ambition might not be satisfied by a match with Martin Bransby's son; but on the other hand, Theodore was a young man of good abilities, and apt to rise in the world. Moreover, he had sufficient property of his own to facilitate his rising—a little ballast of that sort being as useful in the melée of this world as the lead in a toy tumbler, and enabling a man, if not to strike the stars with his sublime head, at least to keep right side uppermost.

Certainly Theodore had appeared much attracted by Miss Hadlow. Not only her beauty but her self-assertion