and the hawthorns were already sobered by a longer acquaintance
with life and Phoebus.

Rose sat fanning herself with a portentous hat, which when in its proper
place served her, apparently, both as hat and as parasol. She seemed to
have been running races with a fine collie, who lay at her feet panting,
but studying her with his bright eyes, and evidently ready to be off
again at the first indication that his playmate had recovered her wind.
Chattie was coming lazily over the lawn, stretching each leg behind her
as she walked, tail arched, green eyes flaming in the sun, a model of
treacherous beauty.

'Chattie, you fiend, come here!' cried Rose, holding out a hand to her;
'if Miss Barks were ever pretty she must have looked like you at this
moment.'

'I won't have Chattie put upon,' said Agnes, establishing herself at the
other side of the little tea-table; 'she has done you no harm. Come to
me, beastie. _I_ won't compare you to disagreeable old maids.'

The cat looked from one sister to the other, blinking; then with a
sudden magnificent spring leaped on to Agnes's lap and curled herself up
there.

'Nothing but cupboard love,' said Rose scornfully, in answer to Agnes's
laugh; 'she knows you will give her bread and butter and I won't, out of
a double regard for my skirts and her morals. Oh, dear me! Miss Barks
was quite seraphic last night; she never made a single remark about my
clothes, and she didn't even say to me as she generally does, with an
air of compassion, that she "_quite_ understands how hard it must be to
keep in tune."'

'The amusing thing was Mrs. Seaton and Mr. Elsmere,' said Agnes. 'I just
love, as Mrs. Thornburgh says, to hear her instructing other people in
their own particular trades. She didn't get much change out of him.'

Rose gave Agnes her tea, and then, bending forward, with one hand on her
heart, said in a stage whisper, with a dramatic glance round the garden,
'My heart is whole. How is yours?'

'_Intact_,' said Agnes calmly, 'as that French bric-a-brac man in the
Brompton Road used to say of his pots. But he is very nice.'

'Oh, charming! But when my destiny arrives'--and Rose, returning to her
tea, swept her little hand with a teaspoon in it eloquently round--'he
won't have his hair cut close. I must have luxuriant locks, and I will
take _no_ excuse! _Une chevelure de poete_, the eye of an eagle, the
moustache of a hero, the hand of a Rubinstein, and, if it pleases him,
the tem