In one of those very pretty suburban villas which are to be seen in the neighbourhood of all our large towns, Aunt Mary lived, at the time when my tale commences.

Indeed she had lived there the greater part of her life, for her father, Mr. Livesay, who had been a highly respected merchant in London for a great many years, had, unlike the generality of this prosperous class, retired from business as soon as he had secured a moderate competency for himself, his wife, and their four daughters, of whom our Aunt Mary was the eldest.

Mr. Livesay had purchased the pretty house, to which he had retreated from the hurry and bustle of the great city, but before doing so, he had taken care to ascertain that the inhabitants of the adjoining villa were likely to prove agreeable neighbours; and this he had done to his entire satisfaction, as Mr. and Mrs. Maitland, with their two sweet little children, gave promise of pleasurable society.

At the time of his retirement from business, the four daughters of Mr. Livesay were grown up to woman's estate; though perhaps that can hardly be said of the youngest, Irene, who was only sixteen, while her two sisters, Ada and Alice, were of the respective ages of eighteen and twenty.

Great pains had been taken in the real education of these young ladies, for their excellent mother had spared no pains in their early training; and as they were all quick and clever children, the task of 'teaching the young idea how to shoot,' in their case, proved 'delightful.' We wish this were oftener the case; but to proceed: Aunt Mary, as we have said, was the eldest of these young ladies; she was at the discreet age of four-and-twenty—indeed, she might have been thirty, for the aptitude she displayed in household matters, taking all the care of housekeeping off her good mother's hands, and being looked up to, and appealed to, in all doubtful matters by her sisters.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Livesay considered their daughter Mary their chief treasure; indeed, she was everything that a daughter ought to be.

There was one thing, however, lacking that her three sisters possessed: she was not beautiful. Aunt Mary, if she had been pretty in infancy, had been spoiled by that dreadful ravager, the small-pox, which she had caught, through the carelessness of a nurse, when she was five years old.

It had not, however, left her entirely without good looks; for the kindly feelings of her heart beamed forth in the eloquent dark eyes and the sweet smile that almost invariably lighted up her face.

Laughingly, she used to say to her sisters, 'Well, you may all get married, and I shall live at home with my mother and father.'

And even as Aunt Mary said, so it came to pass: her sisters all married, and she remained at home, the loving daughter, the tender nurse, the deepest mourner for the loss of their dear parents, whom she had so dutifully cherished in their old age.

At the death of Mr. and Mrs. Livesay, which happened about ten years after the marriage of their two daughters, Ada and Alice—whom I must now introduce to the reader as Mrs. Ellis and Mrs. Beaumont—Aunt Mary was warmly entreated to give up housekeeping, and go and reside with one or other of her sisters, especially as Irene, the youngest, who had for the last twelve months undertaken the task of governess to the two Miss Maitlands, their next-door neighbours, was now engaged to be married, and the house, it was urged, would be too large and too lonely for Aunt Mary to reside in with any comfort.

This proposition, however, did not at all suit one who had for so many years acted independently; nor, although she was fond of children, would she on any account undertake a partial teaching of them. 'Let me have all the say, or none,' was Aunt Mary's maxim, so she decided to remain where she was, promising however, that when her sister Irene should marry Captain Gordon, she would take into serious consideration Mr. and Mrs. Maitland's earnest request, that she would continue the education of their two dear girls at her own house.

This, after the lapse of six months, Miss Livesay had agreed to, and had also sent for the eldest daughter of her sister Mrs. Beaumont, who was now a widow, with three children, though she had been left very well off, and could have sent her daughter Clara to a first-rate school, had she been so disposed. Mrs. Beaumont, however, knew too well the benefit her child was likely to derive from the real education she would receive from her sister Mary, to hesitate for a moment as to putting her under that lady's exclusive care; and thus at the same time that Oak Villa received Mrs. Maitland's two little girls, Annie and Dora, it became also the pleasant home of Clara Beaumont, who although she was the youngest of the trio, was certainly the most seriously disposed; perhaps, poor child, on account of the loss of her dear papa, who had died very unexpectedly, in the prime of life, from neglected cold, which terminated in acute bronchitis. This, though it had occurred six months previous to Clara's advent at Oak Villa, was an event still deeply felt and lamented by the sensitive child, and produced a seriousness of character seldom seen in children of her age; but the change was likely to prove very beneficial both to her health and spirits, and it was not long before Aunt Mary saw, with much pleasure, that her niece gladly entered upon her studies, and appeared very desirous to overtake her young companions in their several lessons, which, as she was exceedingly industrious, she was very likely to do before many weeks had passed away.

We must now, however, look after Aunt Mary's second sister, Mrs. Ellis, whose eldest daughter, Mabel, was only a few months older than Clara Beaumont, but whose character at this time was as unlike that of her young cousin as could possibly be imagined, which the reader will soon perceive when we introduce her in the next chapter, associated as she will be with the gentle and amiable daughters of Mrs. Maitland, who, together with her niece Clara, had been Aunt Mary's pupils for some months, though at present it was holiday-time.