'She rides with us whenever Mr. Windsor can spare his horse-not so often as father and I would like to have her.'

Oh, indeed!' said Mrs. Grey; 'perhaps some day your father may keep a horse for her.'

'He might do it now if Polly would let him,' said Thomasina innocently. 'I have sometimes asked her whether she could not ride one of our horses, and she always says that it would not do.'

6

It would not do for your governess, Thomasina, but it might do for your stepmother. Should you like to have a stepmother?'

'I do not know what you mean,' said Thomasina, colouring all over.

'Then I hope you never will know,' rejoined Mrs. Grey.

The idea worked in Thomasina's little brain, though it was for a time overlaid by

the distractions of present enjoyment. Anthony came home and ate a hurried luncheon, while the cab was standing at the door in which they were to drive to the Regent's Park. Thomasina went to get ready, and . came down dressed in a long white pelisse, a straw bonnet tied with a broad pink ribbon and lined with a quilled bonnet cap, and white silk gloves. Anthony wore white trousers and waistcoat, and a bright blue coat with brass buttons; and, although such costume was less antiquated then than it would now appear, it was easy to see that he and his little girl were country-bred. Thirty years ago fashions did not circulate with the rapidity which now inspires our labourers' children with a desire to imitate the latest Parisian mode, and country visitors were apt to appear a few years out of date. Thomasina also betrayed her rural breeding by her expressions of wild delight as she ran

from cage to cage in the Zoological Gardens. The animals were not in those days luxuriously lodged, and it required a strong resolution and a not too sensitive nose to enter their unsavoury abode and to walk between the closely-ranged cages, at the imminent risk of being clawed by some of their inmates; but the gauntlet was run, and Thomasina was in ecstasies when she was admitted to an inner room, assigned to one sick and plaintive chimpanzee, which wore a dirty flannel coat, and was fondled by his keeper with the tenderness shown by a mother to her sickly infant.

Anthony followed his little girl in all her vagaries with unwearied patience and nearly equal satisfaction until she was thoroughly tired, and he then proposed that they should sit down in the shade to eat ices and listen to the band. 'I shall write to Polly tomorrow,' said Thomasina when they were

comfortably established. 'I can tell her that it is all much more delightful than I expected, and I only wish that she were here too. Do you know, father, Aunt Thomasina says that some day you will marry Polly?'

'It is wrong of Aunt Thomasina to put such nonsense into your head,' said Anthony gruffly. But as he spoke he blushed like a girl, and, while Thomasina listened to the music until her thoughts travelled far from the subject, Anthony saw and heard nothing, because her words had struck a chord in his heart, which was still vibrating. He drove his stick in and out of the dust, and at last said nervously, 'It is not likely that she would have me.'

'Who?' said Thomasina, only recalling by an effort the last subject of discussion; 'do you mean Polly? I think that she likes you very much.'

'And besides,' continued Anthony, 'Sir

Richard would never hear of it. Indeed, I myself would give up everything rather than injure you.'

'I do not see that it could hurt me,' said Thomasina. 'I know that stepmothers in a book are generally wicked, but I should not count Polly for a stepmother; I should still call her Polly, and it would be pleasant to have her always in the house.'

'She would not have me,' repeated Anthony; 'you know that I am old enough to be her father.'

'I do not think you so very old,' said Thomasina, and I have heard her say that she likes middle-aged people best; she thinks that young men are generally stupid.'

The conversation flagged upon this, or

rather diverged to a subject in which Thomasina took for the moment a deeper interest. Sir Richard had given her five pounds to spend in London, and she in