thing but Polly; I should hate her if I had to call her mamma.'

'That is only nonsense; but I daresay that your father will settle it.'

'We have settled it, Aunt Thomasina; he likes me to call her Polly. But I want to know about the governess.'

'I am going to look out for a suitable person for you, and I earnestly hope that you will make a friend and companion of her, and try to make up for lost time. Your education has been sadly neglected.'

Polly did not neglect my education,' said Thomasina. 'I do not believe that I shall like any regular governess; but I will try not to hate her if she is nice and not too old and ugly.'

Thomasina intended this to be a rather conciliatory speech, but Mrs. Grey did not see it in the same light, and she went to London with a strong sense of the hopeless

ness of her task.

How was any governess

to tame so untameable a child, backed, as

she would inevitably be, by Sir Richard's unbounded indulgence?

CHAPTER XI.

ANTHONY'S wedding, which took place on a grey autumnal morning in November, was celebrated with the least possible éclat. Mary's two sisters were her only bridesmaids, and Thomasina drove down to church with Sir Richard and Lady Bertram, and sat as usual in the family pew. In the church porch Sir Richard kissed the bride, and Thomasina clung round her father for a last and close embrace, before they got into the Bertram coach to drive home again, while Mr. and Mrs. Bertram went back to the cottage to start afresh on their wedding tour. Thomasina did not even taste the wedding cake until it was three weeks old, when the Windsors had left the cottage and her father

and his bride returned to take possession of it. There was no bridal finery, none of the freshness and newness which generally meet a young wife's eyes on the threshold of her new home. Mr. Bertram had taken over the well-worn furniture, partly as an accommodation to his father-in-law, and still more because Sir Sir Richard had inveighed so strongly against any unnecessary expense. Mary said brightly that everything would seem more home-like for its familiarity, and her husband was too entirely satisfied with his lot to question the saying.

Anthony set about his new duties at once, and he soon found that his office was no sinecure. Although he had lived at Bertram's Chase all his life, and was acquainted with every stock and stone on the estate, Sir Richard had always held the reins, and he now found himself ignorant of many details of business. Every morning after breakfast

he dutifully waited on Sir Richard, to receive instructions or give his own report; nearly every afternoon they rode round the estate together, and after a while even this was not enough, and Sir Richard ordered rather than invited him to remain to dinner, in order to resume the discussion of some matter under consideration. On the first occasion Anthony yielded, sending off an intimation to Mary that he had been detained, and Mary did not, on his return, add to his annoyance by telling him that she had waited dinner for an hour before the tardy * messenger arrived to explain the cause of delay. Two days afterwards Anthony was emboldened to reply to the same suggestion, Will not to-morrow do as well, Sir Richard?'

'No, sir,' said the old man, firing up; 'to-morrow will not do as well. I will have you at my own time or not at all. It is