girl, slightly mortified that her personal identity was not already known to her new friends. She knew very well that they were Robin and Jem Windsor, and that Robin's eyes were blue, and she liked his curly yellow hair better than his younger brother's redder locks.

'I meant your Christian name; of course I know that you are Miss Bertram. Thomasina is the name on all the Bertram monuments in the chancel, and we call it Asinine Tom.'

'You may call me Asinine Tom if you like; I hate my fine name,' said Thomasina.

Thank you,' rejoined Robin laughing. 'Good afternoon, Tom.' For the gates had been opened and shut again, and Jem was switching the flies off his pony's ears and looking impatient.

As the boys rode off the great stable some warning strokes, which

bell rang

Thomasina knew to be a summons that she must not disregard; and she returned home with her mind so full of the adventure, that she had forgotten Aunt Thomasina's existence. It was not without its interest for the young Windsors, and, when they had unsaddled the pony and turned him into the paddock, they burst into the school-room to relate the incident to their eldest sister, a fair, fresh-coloured girl of seventeen, who was presiding at the children's tea.

'I say, Polly,' exclaimed Jem, ' Robin has been making up to the lady of the manor, and, by way of making himself agreeable, he has revealed the nickname of Asinine Tom.'

'And she really looked quite flattered,' added Robin, while Mary turned red and pale with dismay,

'Oh, Robin, how could you? It might be papa's ruin if Sir Richard and Lady Bertram were to hear it.'

'She would not be such a sneak as to tell; if I thought so, I should never let her open the gates for us again,' said Robin, and this appalling threat was received with a shout of laughter by the rest of the family.

'It was you who first read it off the monuments, you know, Polly,' added Jem.

'It was only a joke among ourselves. I should have thought it very imprudent, as well as impertinent, to tell a Bertram.'

tell

'Prudence be hanged!' said Robin. 'I

you that the young person liked it. She has nice eyes and an honest smile; and I can tell you, Dolly, that her hands are much whiter and better shaped than yours.' And he laid hold of his little sister's brown paw and held it up to public derision.

'Not whiter than mine would be if I chose to be a fine lady and wear gloves,' said Dolly, aggrieved by this attack.

'I doubt whether Asinine Tom is much

of a fine lady,' said Robin; 'she looks after us with her great, wistful eyes as if she would give all her dignity to be allowed to scamper about on a bare-backed pony, or to make a row with us here over our bread-and-scrape.'

'Now, Robin,' said Mary desperately, you must not, you really must not, use that foolish nickname. Unless you promise to speak of her properly, as Miss Bertram, I shall go straight in to papa as soon as he comes home.'

'We will call her Miss Bertram by all means,' said Jem, 'just for the sake of hearing her ask us to call her Tom. I do believe, Polly, that you are jealous of our fine friendship.'

'You are very naughty, provoking boys, and deserve to have your ears boxed,' retorted Mary with unwonted heat; but when Robin said, with an innocent air of surprise, 'I do declare that Polly has lost her

temper!' she joined in the general laugh, and the subject was allowed to drop.

It was not to such a scene of wrangling and turbulent merriment that Thomasina returned home. Her aunt, still in her high bonnet and scarlet shawl, was sitting upright in her chair; Lady Bertram was knitting the squares for a cotton quilt; and Sir Richard, who was ever a man of few words, had subsided into his easy-chair. But they all brightened up when the little white figure appeared through the folding doors of the library, though Lady Bertram asked a little tartly where Thomasina had been.

'Only in the park, granny.

as soon as I heard the bell.

I came back

How do you,

Aunt Thomasina?' And she presented her cheek to be kissed, with the sedate decorum

so often acquired by an only child.

'She is grown, is she not?

She was a

little, toddling thing when you came here