Dear! how old Mrs.Cadogan used to hate that word 'mess,' and correct her granddaughters for using it right before my face, when I knew I had said it myself only the moment before! Well! those days are all over now.

God be thanked!" In spite of being glad that "things were not in her hands" Miss Monro tried to take affairs into her charge by doing all she could to persuade Ellinor to allow her to invite the canon to their "little sociable teas." The most provoking part was, that she was sure he would have come if he had been asked; but she could never get leave to do so.

"Of course no man could go on for ever and ever without encouragement," as she confided to herself in a plaintive tone of voice; and by-and-by many people were led to suppose that the bachelor canon was paying attention to Miss Forbes, the eldest daughter of the family to which the delicate Jeanie belonged.

It was, perhaps, with the Forbeses that both Miss Monro and Ellinor were the most intimate of all the families in East Chester.

Mrs.
Forbes was a widow lady of good means, with a large family of pretty, delicate daughters.