“You don’t intend to grub all the time, without a bit of fun, I hope,” cried Fanny, dismayed at the idea.

“I mean to do what I’ve undertaken, and not to be tempted away from my purpose by anything. I shouldn’t be fit to give lessons if I was up late, should I? And how far would my earnings go towards dress, carriages, and all the little expenses which would come if I set up for a young lady in society? I can’t do both, and I’m not going to try, but I can pick up bits of fun as I go along, and be contented with free concerts and lectures, seeing you pretty often, and ever Sunday Will is to spend with me, so I shall have quite as much dissipation as is good for me.”

“If you don’t come to my parties, I’ll never forgive you,” said Fanny, as Polly paused, while Tom chuckled inwardly at the idea of calling visits from a brother “dissipation”.

“Any small party, where it will do to wear a plain black silk, I can come to; but the big ones mustn’t be thought of, thank you.”

It was charming to see the resolution of Polly’s face when she said that; for she knew her weakness, and beyond that black silk she had determined not to go. Fanny said no more, for she felt quite sure that Polly would relent when the time came, and she planned to give her a pretty dress for a Christmas present, so that one excuse should be removed.

“I say, Polly, won’t you give some of us fellows music lessons? Somebody wants me to play, and I’d rather learn of you than any Senor Twankydillo,” said Tom, who didn’t find the conversation interesting.

“Oh, yes; if any of you boys honestly want to learn, and will behave yourselves, I’ll take you; but I shall charge extra,” answered Polly, with a wicked sparkle of the eye, though her face was quite sober, and her tone delightfully business-like.

“Why, Polly, Tom isn’t a boy; he’s twenty, and he says I must treat him with respect. Besides, he’s engaged, and does put on such airs,” broke in Maud, who regarded her brother as a venerable being.

“Who is the little girl?” asked Polly, taking the news as a joke.

“Trix; why, didn’t you know it?” answered Maud, as if it had been an event of national importance.

“No! is it true, Fan?” and Polly turned to her friend with a face full of surprise, while Tom struck an imposing attitude, and affected absence of mind.

“I forgot to tell you in my last letter; it’s just out, and we don’t like it very well,” observed Fanny, who would have preferred to be engaged first herself.

“It’s a very nice thing, and I am perfectly satisfied,” announced Mrs. Shaw, rousing from a slight doze.

“Polly looks as if she didn’t believe it. Haven’t I the appearance of ‘the happiest man alive’?” asked Tom, wondering if it could be pity which he saw in the steady eyes fixed on him.

“No, I don’t think you have,” she said, slowly.

“How the deuce should a man look, then?” cried Tom, rather nettled at her sober reception of the grand news.

“As if he had learned to care for someone a great deal more than for himself,” answered Polly, with sudden colour in her cheeks, and a sudden softening of the voice, as her eyes turned away from Tom, who was the picture of a complacent dandy, from the topmost curl of his auburn head to the tips of his aristocratic boots.