Mary Gray

cused it to herself, arguing that at twenty months one cannot be expected to ha

d presently you must be able to play and sing to me, to read to me and take an

lege. Her years there were very happy ones, especially those years at the College, after

Miss Merton, to the delighted Lady Anne. "I hope Lady Anne, that you will permit her t

have a mind to see the world again through young eyes. And it will put the coping-stone on her education. I shouldn't dare leave her too long with

, bearing these hard sayings of Lady Anne's with composure. "She has fine

light the spacious class-rooms, the old garden with its great woodland trees, and the tiny rooms of the girls who were in residence at the College, with their quaint and pretty

connected in her latter days at the College had a generous enthus

sie Baynes, who was small and plain-looking, "w

the class appla

n, firing at the picture in her own imagination. "Very few of

o the mother's thoughts, to educate Edie and give her a chance in life-these were the things that filled Jessie's mind to the exclusion of fear whenever she thought of her ordeal at the conferring of the University degrees. To be sure, she trembled a little when she thought of the long, brilliantly lighted Hall, and all the fine ladies, and the scarlet robes of the Senators, and the young barbar

an impulse of gratitude towards those dear cl

said another, "you must stand up in the middle of

Anne, with whom, by this time, she was

vain, Mary. You're well enough, but you aren't half as pretty as a rose, or ha

"There are several of the girls far prettier. As for bein

lways cost you more

ey think well of me," Mary went on. "And, oh! I do hope t

. It was always Lady Anne's way to seem cynica

who is in the running, too, has shaken hands with Jessie, and to

. "Let me see: there are twenty young ladies in your class, and not

ides petty interests," Mary began hotly. "If t

n's Colleges were heard of. I'm glad they've not spoilt you, anyhow. No stooped shoulders, no narrow c

iss Jessica Baynes, B.A., who knew little enough about her own reception, since, as she left the da?s, she had gla

not be forgotten in the distribution of tickets. Walter Gray looked on quietly. He was very proud of his girl; but he had, perhaps, too great a wisdom to set much store by the plaudits of the many. Mrs. Gray, in a bonnet Mary had made for her and a mantle which had been Mary's gift, was in a timid rapture. She was older by some years than she had been when

touching Walter Gray's arm, "I have not m

said, with absent eyes. He had yielded up Mary f

distinguished group in the Hall lo

" she said to her host

, who is a cousin of my wife's," he responded. "The girl has been educated at he

ow her," said the lad

eturned the great person

ons looked on as absolutely shocking. She had had a guardian, a soft, woolly, comfortable gentleman whose will she had brushed aside and replaced by her own from the time she was eight years old. Legally, she was not of age till twenty-one; in reality, she was of age at fifteen

You never do what I wish-you make me do what you wish. Don't go too fast, Agatha,

-there was no doubt of that. Mr. Grainger, of Grainger, Ellison and Wells, who had had charge of the business o

nine hundred and ninety lads out of a thousand for sound common-sense. She w

another upon her for their well-being, and she insisted on coming face to face with these-on dealing with them without an intermediary. And she made no mistakes. She could see through shifty dishonesty as well as if she h

ad to do. Certainly, she contrived to cram into them three times

nest endeavour. Her idea was that the land should afford all the people wished for. She was going to stop the terrible drifting of the people into the towns. Their lives were to be made gayer. There should be entertainments. The farmers' wives and daughters were to make butter and cheese like their forbears, to grow fru

brows puffed out. "She'll dip the estate, and then she'll be coming t

from the experiment. You'll see she'll come out all right, Colonel. The only thing that troubles me is that she may hav

ated somewhat of a flutter. She was as tall as Mary Gray, but much more opulently built. She had short, curling, dark hair, irregular features, and violet eyes-not a bit handsome, but big and bonny and lovesome

ay, and then she insisted on driving her as far as the Mall in her motor-car, which she drove herself, while the chauffeur s

One has to go to the root of the matter, to abolish unjust laws, to replace them by good ones. Supposing I made my estate, as I hope to make it, a Utopia, still

which is latent in the heart of all young people worth their salt sprang into sudden life. Lady Agatha glanced at her, noticed her expression, and smiled a rich,

come in from driving her little pony phaeton, which she liked to drive herself. She had a little wild, bri

n't you come inside and have some tea? I'm very glad my Chloe didn't meet that uncanny monster of

ncern. "Her little pony is very wild, Lady Agatha, and

in, Lady Agatha. I've been hearing about you. What do you mean by making my tenants discontente

un, like a good many other people, with a certain distrust of the brilliant young

and hear her talk. And so she has taken a huge fancy to my Mary. Very well, then, she

dimmed eyes, "except you and papa. But if they di