70 THE COUSINS.

wear a lace dress looped up with roses, she began
to consider it quite an honour to be permitted to
perform Miss Ann Noel’s sums, to write out for
her the answers required by her lesson in geogra- |
phy and history, and to furnish her every week
with a composition, which she was quite satisfied
to show as her own.

Lucy and Mary had been frequently invited to
pass the Saturday, which was always a holyday
in their school, at Mr. Noel’s house. To these
invitations Mrs. Lovett had always replied that
she seldom allowed her children to visit without
her. At length Miss Ann Noel proposed that,
since her friend Luey could not come to her, she
would come to Lucy, and bring her brother, a
boy of nine years, with her. As Mrs. Lovett
really knew nothing against the children, she did
not think it necessary to mortify Lucy by de-
clining this proffered visit, and, on the following
Saturday, Emma’s cradle was removed up stairs,
and the basement was relinquished to Lucy and
Mary, and Miss Ann and Master Thomas Noel.
Mary was not particularly pleased with these.
visitors. Still she had assisted Lucy in her pre-