Arthur, you may talk to me from morning to night, but you will never persuade me but that Jasmine is the sort of girl who would shine better in prosperity than in adversity." "You cannot take her from her sisters," said Noel; "I do not believe you would get her to leave them--but if you were to try and were to succeed, you would certainly lower her character, and having done this, you could not say she would be a better girl in prosperity than in adversity." "You are so particular, Arthur," half grumbled Mrs.Ellsworthy; "you must have forgotten your own very poor days, or you would not speak so warmly for adversity." "I don't quite forget them," said Arthur, a cloud coming over his face, which was a particularly bright one.

"I have a dim memory about them, and a very, very dim memory about a mother and an old nurse, who loved me very much.

I can just recall crying night after night for my mother, and being beaten, and silenced, and half starved.

Then I suppose I was ill, for I know there is a blank which I never can fill up; but I shall always remember that day when I stood in the snowy street, and cried so bitterly, and tried to ask for pennies, and how my hat blew off, and I ran to catch it, and then--" "Oh, it was horrible!" said Mrs.Ellsworthy, covering her face with her hands.

"I shudder at it even now--the coachman could not keep the horses in, and they went over you, and we thought you were killed.