CHAPTER XIV.

"Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong and Miss Lefroy. Lady Portrann at home Tuesday,

the 16th of January, 10 P.M. Dancing."

"Addie, that means a ball, doesn't it? How delightful! You're going, of

course?"

"I suppose so. Mr. Armstrong wishes it."

"And you'll wear your white _broché_ and pearls. Oh, isn't it well for

you?" groans Pauline wistfully. "Miss Lefroy--that's me, of course. It

was nice of them to ask me, wasn't it, Addie?"

"Yes. I suppose they did not know you were still in the school-room,

Polly."

"I'm past seventeen, and eldest daughter now that you're married and

done for, Addie, and I do think it's hard lines keeping me down."

"If Mr. Armstrong wishes to give you the advantage of education, no

matter how late, I think you ought to be extremely grateful to him,

instead of grumbling as you continually do," says Mrs. Armstrong

severely.

"You're so remarkably well educated yourself, Addie," retorts Pauline,

"you can well afford to preach. Didn't you see how Tom stared the other

night when you asked him which would take longest, to go to New York or

Calcutta? I'm sure, if he keeps me in the school-room, he ought to keep

you too. 'Lady Portrann at home, 10 P.M. Dancing.' How lovely

it sounds! How I wish I could go, just to see what it would be like!

I wouldn't dance, you know, Addie, or wear a silk dress, or anything

in that way, but just sit in a corner and look on quietly; and--and

don't you think, if you put it to your husband mildly like, that he

might--might--"

"I think nothing in the matter, my dear," answers Addie decisively;

"and I'll put nothing to my husband, mildly or otherwise; so it's of no

use asking me."

"Don't then!"

"I won't."

The sisters glare at each other; then Addie moves away, humming a tune,

and the vexed question is not alluded to again that day.

The next morning, when she is seated at her desk, composing her

acceptance, Pauline bounces in with dancing eyes and leans over her.

"'Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong have much pleasure in accepting--' It won't

do--it won't do! You'll have to begin again, my dear, though this is

the third sheet I see you've spoiled. Begin again, Addie, begin: I'll

dictate to you--

"'Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong and Miss Lefroy have much pleasure in

accepting Lady Portrann's kind invitation for Tuesday, the 16th

proximo.' Yes, you may stare; but I'm going to the ball. Tom says

I may, if I can get your consent; and I know I shall get that--you

couldn't be such a--a--fiend, Addie, as to refuse when he has

consented?"

"I suppose I couldn't," she answers meekly, attacking her fourth sheet.

"If I did, you'd lead me such a life that--"

"I should, dear," admits Miss Lefroy briskly--"I certainly should. Now

give me the note; I'll put it into the post-bag myself."

"Wait a moment, Polly! About your dress? As you don't mean to dance,

I suppose one of your ordinary evening grenadines, with a little

furbishing up, will do very well?"

"But, as I do happen to mean to dance if I'm asked, one of my ordinary

evening grenadines won't do for the occasion at all."

"But I thought you said--"

"I said nothing to Tom, but just asked if I might go, and he answered

'Yes,' without conditions or qualifications of any kind. So I'll go now

in regular _tenue_."

"Then you can have one of my _trousseau_ dresses--that pretty blue

silk, if you like; our figures are not very unlike, and a little

altering--"

"Thanks, dear--you are very kind; but, as this is my first ball, I

must appear in virgin white, and I could not exactly wear your wedding

dress, could I?"

"I shall wear it myself."

"Exactly. So I think we had better order the carriage this morning, and

we'll drive to Kelvick and interview Armine at once on the subject. I

know what I'll have to a flounce--the exact copy of a dress described

in the 'Queen' last week--it was worn at a Sandringham ball--all white

satin and gauze with clustering bunches of white lilac and maiden-hair,

and a corsage of that lovely pearl _passementerie_."

"Pearl _passementerie_, satin, gauze! Pauline, are you aware that those

are about three of the most expensive materials you could hit upon?

Where is the money to come from?"

"The money is here; don't trouble your head about that!" breaks in

Pauline, triumphantly displaying a bundle of crisp notes. "He gave me

it at once, and said besides that anything over and above was to be

entered to your account at Madame Armine's. Now are you satisfied?"

"Satisfied!" she echoes passionately. "Satisfied! Oh, Polly, Polly,

dear sister, I wish you wouldn't--wouldn't take money like that! And

you know I have no account at Madame Armine's--you know I haven't!"

"Stuff!"

"Our hands are always outstretched--always; we give nothing and take

everything. How can you bear it--how?"

"Oh, Addie, I have no patience with you! You talk of your husband as if

he were a stranger, a complete outsider--as if we had no interest in

him or he in us; it is a shame! I protest I understand him better than

you. I saw at once that it was a pleasure to him to give me a dress;

and I foresee too that it will give him pleasure to see me fashionably

and becomingly got up on the 16th. I'm determined not to balk him. I

think your feeling in the matter is both unnatural and absurd--absurd

in the extreme!"

Miss Lefroy has her way, and that same afternoon is fingering gauzes,

satins, and laces at Madame Armine's. Her sister, seeing that it would

be of no use venturing on delicate ground again, with a feeling of

impotence to wrestle against her will in particular, and the tide of

events in general, gives in with a weary sigh.

* * * * *

On the night of the 16th Armstrong is standing under the drawing-room

chandelier, anxiously working his large bony hands into a pair of

evening gloves of treacherous texture and about half a size too small

for him, when his womenfolk rustle in, fully equipped for conquest.

"Do you like me, Tom?"

He looks down at his wife standing before him in the bridal finery

which she refused to wear at the altar, her fair white shoulders

shining through folds of delicate lace, a necklet of pearls--his

wedding-gift--encircling her pretty throat, a bunch of pale pink roses

loosely hanging from her rough brown hair.

"How fair, how bright, how young you look, my love, my love!" he

thinks, with a sort of hungry pain; while her gray eyes meet his

with the strange expression they always wear now, half wistful, half

defiant, and a little scared as well--an expression which he sometimes

feels, with a pang of impotent remorse, that no act, or word, or wish

of his can ever chase thence again, even if he labored as manfully as

he is now doing to the end of his days.

"Do I like you," he repeats softly--"like you, Addie!" Then,

with a quick return to his usual self-possessed, matter-of-fact

manner--"Certainly, my dear; your dress is very nice indeed."

"Rapturous commendation!" she answers, with a light vexed laugh.

"Now, Addie, clear away; it is my turn, please. What have you to say to

me, Mr. Armstrong?"

"You?" he cries, staggering back, and shading his eyes as if overcome

by the vision. "Who are you, pray--the Queen of Sheba?--Cleopatra?"

"Miss Pauline Lefroy, at your service, exemplifying the old proverb of

'Fine feathers make fine birds.' Now, honestly, what do you think of my

feathers, Tom?"

Pauline steps forward, giving her train a brisk twitch, and poses under

the chandelier, her lithe stately figure draped in clouds of silky

gauze, her masses of dusky hair piled high on her head, interwoven with

chains of pearls, her lovely gypsy face sparkling with the glow of

excitement and anticipated pleasure.

"'Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of Night

As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear,'"

quotes Armstrong dramatically. "Will that homage to your plumage do

fair sister-in-law?"

"Yes, it sounds like Shakespeare or Milton. Shakespeare, is it? 'Her

beauty hangs upon the cheek of Night like a--' What?"

"'Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear.'"

"It is a fine idea, strongly put--better than being told flatly that I

was nice, like a bit of well-fried beefsteak. And so you think I shall

do?"

"By Jove, yes," thinks he, in startled admiration. "I rather think you

will, Miss Polly! What a splendid specimen of womanhood you are, to be

sure! Strange I never seemed to take in the power of your comeliness

until to-night!"

He glances at the two sisters standing side by side--at the girl,

lastly, who, in a ragged cotton dress, without even the ornament of

ladylike neatness, without one word or smile of attractive intent,

chained his senses in one luckless moment and robbed him of his peace

forever. He shakes his head; it is of no use going over the old story

again; the mischief is done, and there is an end of it.

"She is not beautiful, my little Addie, she is but a pallid

spring-blossom beside the tropical coloring of her sister," he thinks

bitterly. "Few men, I suppose, would waste a glance on her when they

could feed on the other's beauty; and yet she is all I want--all. My

life would be full if I had her. Oh, the irony of fate to think that

what is by law my own, my very own, what no man covets, I can not

grasp--to think that she, the delight of my eyes, the one love of my

life, must live under the same roof with me, and yet be as far apart as

if the poles sundered us! And we are drifting further day by day; we

can not even be friends. I have more in common now with her sisters,

even with her cub of a brother, than with her. A wall of constraint

is rising hourly between us. We can not talk together five minutes

without falling into an uncomfortable silence, or tripping over matter

we had agreed to bury. I wonder how it will all end! By Jove, I should

like to have a peep at our position, say, this day ten years! Please

Providence, the boys will have struck out lines for themselves ere

then, and some fellows will have induced the girls to quit my fireside

too, if--if I see fit to make it worth their while. Miss Pauline, with

five or six thousand pounds, would be a prize many men would like to

secure. Lottie too would have a chance under the same conditions; there

would be only Addie and I left to drift into autumn together. By Jove,

I should like to know how it will end! Hang it, my glove is gone at

last!" he exclaims aloud, in dismay.

"I thought as much, Tom. I hope you have another pair, because the most

skillful needle-and-thread in the world wouldn't bridge that chasm. Oh,

I see you have another pair! Now, will you concentrate your powerful

intellect on my train for a minute? I'm going to walk slowly from the

piano to the window, and I want you to tell me it you can detect the

faintest outline of steel or wire, the merest suggestion of string or

tape anywhere."

"No, Pauline, on my honor as a British merchant!" he answers solemnly.

"I can detect not one trace of the inward mechanism of your dress. It

is veiled to me in darkest art. You are inflated in a manner wonderful

and fearful to behold."

"I believe you! That is what I call the perfection of a fan-tail;

Armine is the only dress-maker in Kelvick who can work them like that,"

remarks Pauline complacently. "I flatter myself there won't be another

train surpassing mine in the room. And fancy, Tom--Addie wanted me to

appear in a home-made muslin or grenadine, with a blue silk sash and

blue ribbons in my hair, like a school-girl going out to a suburban

tea-party! Wasn't I right to resist? Haven't I your entire approbation?"

"Certainly, I think the most extreme measure would justify the end you

have achieved, Miss Lefroy," he answers, laughing.

"Well, one end you have certainly achieved, my dear sister," says Addie

ruefully. "You have certainly crushed my poor dress, put me out of the

field altogether, which is rather hard lines, considering I'm a--a

bride and all that. Nobody will look at me when you are near."

"Then I must keep well out of your way, dear," she answers sweetly.

"Ah, here comes the carriage at last! Where's my fan, bouquet,

handkerchief? Oh, dear, if I should get myself crushed or squeezed

before I arrive! Tom, I engage the front of the brougham; you and

Addie must sit together at the back. It's wrong to separate those whom

Heaven has joined together, you know."

"Pauline," cries Addie sharply, "I wish you would not make those

flippant remarks; they're extremely unbecoming!"

Pauline raises her saucy eyes to her brother-in-law's disturbed face,

and asks innocently--

"Am I flippant, Tom? Have I said anything wrong? Tell me--do you want

the back all to yourself?"

"I want neither the back nor the front, my dear," he answers placidly.

"I'd rather not be brought into close contact with the mysteries of

your dress. I'm going to enjoy my cigar on the box-seat."

"Are you? I dare say you'll like it better than being squashed between

us," assents Pauline lightly.

"You are going to do nothing of the kind," interposes Addie, with

flaming face. "I will not allow it. Going to sit outside for a seven

miles' drive on a snowy night in January, just to save a few wretched

flowers from being crushed! Pauline, I'm ashamed of you!"

"My dear Addie, don't get so hot about it, it was my own suggestion,

not your sister's. I do not mind the weather in the least. It's not

a bad kind of night for the season of the year, and I have a famous

overcoat lined with fur, and my cigar."

They are all three standing in the porch. Addie suddenly walks back

into the hall, and begins undoing her wraps; they follow her in quickly.

"What are you doing? What is the matter?"

"I am not going to the ball, Pauline; I should not like to crush your

flounces, dear," she answers, with sparkling eyes.

Pauline crimsons.

"Addie, how--how spiteful you are!" she cries, angrily. "You know I did

not want your husband to sit on the box-seat; he suggested it himself.

There is plenty of room for us all inside. Oh, come along, Addie; don't

be so nasty and spiteful!"

But she is not to be propitiated; she shakes off her sister's

protesting hands, and moves away upstairs.

"I am not nasty or spiteful, Pauline; but I do not feel inclined for

this ball. I feel a headache coming on. Mr. Armstrong will take you

there without me."

Pauline remains motionless, and casts an appealing look at her

brother-in-law.

"Tom, go after her--see what you can do. I should only make matters

worse."

After a second's hesitation, he follows Addie up the stairs, and lays

his hand gently on her shoulder.

"Addie, come back; I won't go to the ball without you. Come back!"

"What nonsense! You can go very well without me. I do not care for it,

I tell you."

She speaks sharply and sullenly enough; but a few hot tears trickle

down her cheeks as she turns away her face from his scrutiny.

Before he knows what he is about, he takes her handkerchief, and wipes

them away softly, whispering, beseechingly--

"I will do what you like, sit where you like. Come, my own dear little

girl--come!"

She puts her hand on his arm.

"You will sit inside with us?"

"Of course, if you wish it. I would not have proposed the box-seat if I

had known you would not like it, Addie. I never thought of the weather.

Why, I have slept out of doors in Canadian backwoods in three times as

severe weather as this, and I'm alive to tell the tale--ah, scores of

times!"

The drive is an uncomfortable one for all three, though Pauline,

anxious to remove the impression of the scene, rattles "nineteen to the

dozen." Her sister speaks not a word, and Armstrong is too wrapped up

in somber, anxious thought to respond.

Clearly as one would read an open book, he can now read the page of his

little wife's troubled life--can read the meaning of flushing cheek,

quivering lip, tearful eye--can see the passion of revolt that stirs

her sensitive being--can feel how her pride, her delicacy is daily,

hourly, outraged by the condition of their lives--and his heart yearns

over her.

"If," he thinks, with an impotent sigh, "I had chosen the other sister,

it would have been different; her coarser, more selfish nature would

have adapted itself to the circumstances without a pang. She would

have accepted without murmur or protest the best I had to give, would

have put her hands into my pocket and spent my money with the freedom

and _insouciance_ of esteemed wifehood, would never have disturbed my

equanimity by one of those piteous pleading looks, half pain, half

defiance, that thrill through me with a foreboding of coming tragedy.

I wonder how it will all end! Why will she not accept the inevitable,

and give me peace at least? Peace is all I ask from her. If she would

take things as her sisters and her brothers do, I should in time become

reconciled to my fate, should learn to feel toward her as I feel toward

them; but she will not--she will not. She will go her own way, and keep

my heart in a ferment, watching her every movement, straining my ears

to catch every tone of her ever-changeful voice."

He looks with a sort of admiring impatience at her, as she sits by his

side, her eyes closed, the trace of tears staining her flushed cheeks,

and something tells him that it will always be so between them, that

she will never harden, never learn to eat his bread with the easy

unconsciousness of her kindred, never suffer him to despise her, and

thus emancipate himself.

Armstrong is an epicure in sexual sentiment. He can love no woman

whom he cannot esteem. The loveliest face shielding a venal soul has

no attraction for him; and women for the possession of whose frail

fairness men in his rank of life have bartered the hard-earned wages of

years, have abandoned home, wife, and children, to him are as innocuous

as the homeliest-featured crone. Having always been a comparatively

successful man, in his many wanderings he has been waylaid by harpies

of various nationalities, experienced in attack; but honeyed speech

or melting glance has never charmed a guinea from his pocket or a

responsive smile from his granite lips--and this through no sense of

moral or religious rectitude, but simply because he can not value the

favoring of any woman in whom self-respect does not govern every other

feeling, sway every action of her life. The woman he loves shall be a

lady to the core, pure-minded, dainty, sensitive, and proud. In his

wife he recognizes these qualities, and worships them accordingly; and

yet, with the perverse selfishness innate even in the best of mankind,

he would fain see her stripped of them all in order to shake himself

free from her thralldom and heal up the wound she has unwittingly dealt

his pride and self-esteem.

He knows, if she can but lower herself in his eyes by some act of

meanness, folly, or ingratitude, her downfall will be permanent, and he

will regain the even tenor of his life, and be his own master again.

* * * * *

"Here we are at last, Addie; wake up--wake up! How lovely the house

looks blazing with light! Listen to the music; they must have begun

dancing. Oh, Tom, get out quick!"

However, when they appear on the gay and crowded scene, Miss Pauline's

effervescence somewhat subsides. A feeling of diffidence, of timidity

almost, seizes her. She half shrinks behind her brother-in-law's broad

shoulders when one of their hostess's sons appears, a smiling partner

in tow. However, it is Mrs. Armstrong who is borne off first; and then

Pauline steps a little forward and sends her roving eye round the

room with success. A little later Addie returns breathless, with eyes

sparkling with excitement and pleasure.

"I've had such a lovely dance, Tom; I never thought I should like it so

much or keep in step as I did! Where's Polly? How is she getting on?"

Armstrong points across the room, where Miss Lefroy, with her deer-like

head erect, stands surrounded by a group of young men eagerly seeking

to inscribe her name on their cards.

"She's getting on fairly for a beginner, isn't she? I don't fancy

she'll trouble us much more with her society to-night."

He is right. Miss Pauline, whether ignorant of or regardless of the

etiquette of ball-room proprieties, returns no more to the corner she

left in maiden trepidation at the request of a dapper little squire,

fair-haired and blue-eyed, whose heart she stormed the first moment she

entered the room.

"Tom," says Addie, two hours later, when she returns again, a little

exhausted with the unusual exercise, to the spot where he stands so

patiently propped up against the wall watching the _élite_ of Nutshire

taking their pleasure, "look at Pauline; she is dancing again with

that blue-eyed boy--the fourth time, I think. I tried to attract her

attention two or three times; but she either did not or would not see

me. I don't know much about the proprieties; but don't you think--"

"I know even less about them than you, my dear. I think I have not been

to half a dozen balls in my life, and never before as the guardian of a

young lady's morals; so I won't presume to advise you. It seems to me

she is enjoying herself in a very innocent and above-board manner. I

wouldn't try to stop her."

"Do you know her partner, Tom?"

"Oh, yes. Jack Everard of Broom Hill, a thorough little gentleman and

a general favorite in the county, I believe, but not much of a lady's

man. I'm surprised to see him here."

"Horsy?"

"Yes, and doggy; he keeps a famous breed of greyhounds. Pauline seems

to have made quite a conquest."

"I wonder what they are talking about so earnestly? Dogs, I suppose;

Pauline loves dogs, you know, better almost than human beings."

"Hem!"

"You think she is flirting? Oh, there you make a mistake! There is

nothing Pauline despises so much as flirting and love-making and

nonsense. I wouldn't be the man to make a soft speech to her, I know!"

"Everard is a plucky little fellow."

"Pauline's snubs are hard to get over."

"I say, Addie--look! There's an engagement going on now; the tall

cavalryman seems to be getting the worst of it. I suppose it's about a

disputed dance; they're referring to their cards. How red Everard is!

the quiver of his nostrils indicates bloodshed, nothing else."

"He just looks like an angry turkey-cock."

"And, by Jove, look at your sister, Addie! Look at the supreme

indifference of her attitude, the queenly wave of her fan! Wouldn't you

say she was the heroine of half a dozen London seasons at the least?

Bravo, Polly, bravo! You'll get on, my dear."

Miss Lefroy is the acknowledged belle of the evening; every man in the

room seeks to be introduced to her, and people who for the last twelve

years have sat in the pew next to hers at church, who have never taken

the trouble of noticing her presence during her long Cinderellahood,

now load her with fulsome compliments and attentions when they see the

tide of popular favor turning her way; and she receives it all with the

dignity and gracious indifference of one bred in the purple and fed

on adulations from her cradle. Poor Jack Everard never suspects that

the few hot words so gravely yet soothingly suppressed by his lovely

partner, that escaped him after supper, are the first whispers of love

that have ever tickled her cold ear, that this is the first night any

one has told her she is fair in the eyes of men.

"Miss Lefroy," exclaims that young gentleman in a stealthy whisper when

the night is far advanced and the ball-room thinning visibly, "there's

a plot against you; they want to take you home. Your brother-in-law is

skirmishing for you briskly in all the passages. Unless you deliver

yourself into my hands at once, you can not fail to be caught."

"They want to go? Oh, impossible," she cried in dismay, "when I'm

engaged for half a dozen dances yet! It's quite early; they couldn't be

so selfish!"

"Couldn't they! Your sister says that Mr. Armstrong is very tired and

has to be up early in the morning to go to his business, and that she

won't wait another minute. She commissioned me to bring you to her at

once; allow me."

She puts her hand mechanically on his arm, and he leads her off in

the opposite direction to that where Addie, sleepy and impatient, sits

waiting, knowing that her husband's thoroughbreds have been pawing the

gravel for the last half hour in the frosty night, and that he himself,

somewhat weary, is longing for a few hours' rest before the busy day

begins.

The culprits are passing through a distant conservatory, when a tall

handsome girl with masses of golden hair stops them, unceremoniously

and holds up her card for Everard's inspection.

"Yes, Jack; indeed you may blush! To three dances you scribbled your

name, and never came up for one. If we moved in a different sphere of

life I think my feelings would find rather strong expression."

Pauline crimsons to the roots of her hair, and, scenting an insult,

draws away haughtily; but her suspicions are speedily allayed.

The young lady cuts Everard's excuses short.

"There, there! I'll forgive you, on condition that you present me to

your partner, whom I am anxious to know. Our mothers were friends long

ago, before either of us was born."

He speedily complies with her request.

"Miss Lefroy, will you allow me to introduce you to my cousin, Miss

Wynyard, who is anxious to make your acquaintance?"

The girls bow. Miss Wynyard puts out her hand and says, with a frank

laugh--

"Miss Lefroy, do you know that this is a very generous overture on my

part, considering the attitude that you and I must henceforth assume

toward each other?"

"I don't understand. What attitude?" asks Pauline, puzzled, yet

interested.

"That of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth; of Mrs. Clive and Mrs.

Oldfield--the rival queens, in fact. You've deposed me to-night; for

three years since I came out I have been the undisputed belle of

Nutshire society--haven't I, Jack, haven't I? You know you can't deny

it, sir!"--impatiently to her cousin, who receives her bold statement

with a contemptuous chuckle.

"I don't deny that you have been pretty popular, Flo," he answers

quietly; "but let me tell you, my dear, that you did not go down with

lots of fellows I know. They thought you a good deal too free and fast.

They may have liked to talk with you and have enjoyed your society for

the time; but afterward--afterward--I've heard them--heard them--"

Miss Wynyard's face flushes; her bold eyes droop for a second.

"Isn't a cousin a detestable institution, Miss Lefroy?" she says,

with a vexed laugh. "Don't you believe a word he says; you can get

my character from any one you like but him, and you'll hear there is

nothing very reprehensible in me."

"I'll take your character from yourself," answers Pauline, who finds

herself taking a sudden fancy to this outspoken young person.

"Thank you. Then you must learn that my bark is worse than my bite,

and that, though I'm fast and speak out plainly, I'm not a bad person

at bottom, and not a bit of a sneak. What I have to say I say to your

face, and you know the worst of me at once. Will you take me as you

find me and strike up a friendship with me? Half the men and all the

old women of the place will swear that I shall hate you like poison

for being younger and handsomer and fresher than myself. Suppose you

and I strike up a defensive alliance in the cause of common womanhood,

and refute their slanders with an eternal friendship?"

"Don't, Miss Lefroy, don't!" puts in Everard aggravatingly. "You don't

know what her bark is when she's in full cry. Her style is as bad--"

"Be quiet, Jack, do! I'm not speaking to you."

"And I'm not listening to him in the least, Miss Wynyard," says Pauline

quickly; "and I'm quite ready to enter an alliance with you on the

spot."

"Done! We'll never let a man or the pattern of a frock come between

us--never."

"Certainly not."

"The last friend I had--for whom I'd have sacrificed my very

life--broke from me because I happened to copy her Ascot dress and look

better in it than she did."

"You may copy every article of clothing I wear," says Pauline warmly.

"Thank you; you are thorough. I'll send over my maid to-morrow to take

off the cut of that train--it was the best-setting one in the room. And

now nearest and dearest must part. You'll see me soon--before the end

of the week. By the bye, what's your name?"

"Pauline. And yours?"

"Florence."

"Good-night, Florence."

"Good-night, Pauline."

Thus Miss Pauline cements the first friendship outside her erst all

sufficing family-circle, a friendship which, as the months go by, takes

her further and further from the sister with whom she has hitherto

shared every thought, every hope of her life, and who has sacrificed

herself irretrievably to give her a home.