nd while showing his miniature to Gwendolen recalled with a
fervor which seemed to count on a peculiar filial sympathy, the fact
that dear papa had died when his little daughter was in long clothes.
Gwendolen, immediately thinking of the unlovable step-father whom she
had been acquainted with the greater part of her life while her frocks
were short, said--

"Why did you marry again, mamma? It would have been nicer if you had
not."

Mrs. Davilow colored deeply, a slight convulsive movement passed over
her face, and straightway shutting up the memorials she said, with a
violence quite unusual in her--

"You have no feeling, child!"

Gwendolen, who was fond of her mamma, felt hurt and ashamed, and had
never since dared to ask a question about her father.

This was not the only instance in which she had brought on herself the
pain of some filial compunction. It was always arranged, when possible,
that she should have a small bed in her mamma's room; for Mrs.
Davilow's motherly tenderness clung chiefly to her eldest girl, who had
been born in her happier time. One night under an attack of pain she
found that the specific regularly placed by her bedside had been
forgotten, and begged Gwendolen to get out of bed and reach it for her.
That healthy young lady, snug and warm as a rosy infant in her little
couch, objected to step out into the cold, and lying perfectly still,
grumbling a refusal. Mrs. Davilow went without the medicine and never
reproached her daughter; but the next day Gwendolen was keenly
conscious of what must be in her mamma's mind, and tried to make amends
by caresses which cost her no effort. Having always been the pet and
pride of the household, waited on by mother, sisters, governess and
maids, as if she had been a princess in exile, she naturally found it
difficult to think her own pleasure less important than others made it,
and when it was positively thwarted felt an astonished resentment apt,
in her cruder days, to vent itself in one of those passionate acts
which look like a contradiction of habitual tendencies. Though never
even as a child thoughtlessly cruel, nay delighting to rescue drowning
insects and watch their recovery, there was a disagreeable silent
remembrance of her having strangled her sister's canary-bird in a final
fit of exasperation at its shrill singing which had again and again
jarringly interrupted her own. She had taken pains to buy a white mouse
for her sister in retribution,