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“Oh, Reginald!” cried Ursula. “You have come home!”

“Yes—for good,” he said with a half-laugh, half-sigh. “Or for bad—who can tell? At all events, here I am.”

“Why should it be for bad?” cried Janey, whose voice was always audible half-way up the street. “Oh, Ursula, something very nice has happened. He is to be warden of the old college, fancy! That is being provided for, papa says; and a beautiful old house.”

“Warden of the old college! I thought it was always some old person who was chosen.”

“But papa says he can live at home and let the house,” cried Janey. “There is no reason why it should be an old gentleman, papa thinks; it is nice, because there is no work—but look at Reginald, he does not like it a bit; he is never satisfied, I am sure, I wish it was me—”

“Come in,” said Reginald hastily, “I don't want all my affairs, and my character besides, to be proclaimed from the house-tops.” Janey stopped indignant, to make some reply, and Ursula, grasping her arm, as she feared, with an energetic pinch, went in quickly. Little Amy had been playing in the little square hall, which was strewed with doll's clothes, and with two or three dolls in various stages of dilapidation. Some old, ragged school-books lay in a corner, the leaves out of one of which were blowing about in the wind. Even ten days of Anne Dorset's orderly reign had opened Ursula's eyes to these imperfections.