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"THIS is most vexatious, most perplexing; I am sure that I scarcely know which way to turn," exclaimed Mrs. Fairley, as she entered the room in which her firstborn babe lay asleep in his cradle, trimmed with muslin, blue ribbon, and lace.
The lady was very young, and looked even younger than she was. She had but lately left the school-room when she had married Mr. Fairley, a widower, and so had become stepmother to his two children, who were six and seven years of age. Little suited was a lively girl, who had never so much as paid a bill for herself, to undertake at once the care of a house and family.