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“You mistook me, Grace,” said Mrs. Harcourt, smiling at her maid’s eager volubility: “in future, you understand, that Herbert is to be entire master of his own hair.”

“Thank you, mother,” said Herbert.

“Nay, my dear Herbert, thank Mad. de Rosier: I only speak in her name. You understand, I am sure, Grace, now,” said Mrs. Harcourt, calling to her maid, who seemed to be in haste to quit the room–“you, I hope, understand, Grace, that Mad. de Rosier and I are always of one mind about the children; therefore you need never be puzzled by contradictory orders–hers are to be obeyed.”

Mrs. Harcourt was so much pleased when she looked at Herbert, as she concluded this sentence, to see an expression of great affection and gratitude, that she stooped instantly to kiss him.

“Another kiss! two kisses to-day from my mother, and one of her own accord!” exclaimed Herbert joyfully, running out of the room to tell the news to Favoretta.

“That boy has a heart,” said Mrs. Harcourt, with some emotion; “you have found it out for me, Mad. de Rosier, and I thank you.”

Mad. de Rosier seized the propitious moment to present a card of invitation, which Herbert, with much labour, had printed with his little printing-press.

“What have we here?” said Mrs. Harcourt, and she read aloud–

‘Mr. Herbert Harcourt’s love to his dear mother, and, if she be not engaged this evening, he should be exceedingly glad of her company, to meet Isabella, Matilda, Favoretta, and Mad. de Rosier, who have promised to sup with him upon his own radishes to-night. They are all very impatient for your answer.'”

“My answer they shall have in an instant,” said Mrs. Harcourt:–“why, Mad. de Rosier, this is the boy who could neither read nor spell six months ago. Will you be my messenger?” added she, putting a card into Mad. de Rosier’s hand, which she had written with rapidity:–

“Mrs. Harcourt’s love to her dear little Herbert; if she had a hundred other invitations, she would accept of his.”

“Bless me!” said Mrs. Grace, when she found the feathers, which she had placed with so much skill in her mistress’s hair, lying upon the table half an hour afterward–“why, I thought my mistress was going out!”

Grace’s surprise deprived her even of the power of exclamation, when she learned that her mistress stayed at home to sup with Master Herbert upon radishes. At night she listened with malignant curiosity, as she sat at work in her mistress’s dressing-room, to the frequent bursts of laughter, and to the happy little voices of the festive company who were at supper in an adjoining apartment.

“This will never do!” thought Grace; but presently the laughter ceased, and listening attentively, she heard the voice of one of the young ladies reading. “Oh ho!” thought Grace, “if it comes to reading, Master Herbert will soon be asleep.”–But though it had come to reading, Herbert was, at this instant, broad awake.

At supper, when the radishes were distributed, Favoretta was very impatient to taste them; the first which she tasted was hot, she said, and she did not quite like it.

” Hot !” cried Herbert, who criticized her language, in return for her criticism upon his radishes, “I don’t think you can call a radish hot –it is cold, I think: I know what is meant by tasting sweet, or sour, or bitter.”

“Well,” interrupted Favoretta, “what is the name for the taste of this radish which bites my tongue?”

” Pungent,” said Isabella, and she eagerly produced a quotation in support of her epithet–

“‘And pungent radish biting infant’s tongue.'”

“I know for once,” said Matilda, smiling, “where you met with that line, I believe: is it not in Shenstone’s Schoolmistress, in the description of the old woman’s neat little garden?”