She was a born housekeeper, and loved sewing and cake-baking and jam-making, and dusting the best china, and gardening, and rearing poultry and ducks.

It seemed a great pity that she could not have changed places with her elder sister,

but Beatrice’s education had been stopped too soon for her to be of any use as a teacher,

while Winnie, though not clever, had been carefully trained in Rodenhurst methods.

Fortunately, she had a very cheerful, sunny disposition,

that was prone to make the best of things,

so she struggled along,

taking Miss Roscoe’s many suggestions and reproofs so amiably that the Principal,

often irate at her lack of capacity,

had not the heart to scold her too severely.