It made me so vexed that I
came away there and then, and wouldn't have one--no, not at a gift.'

'They call them young onions here,' said Ethelberta quietly; 'you must
always remember that. But, Gwendoline, I wanted--'

Ethelberta felt sick at heart, and stopped. She had come down on the
wings of an impulse to unfold her trouble about Picotee to her
hard-headed and much older sister, less for advice than to get some heart-
ease by interchange of words; but alas, she could proceed no further. The
wretched homeliness of Gwendoline's mind seemed at this particular
juncture to be absolutely intolerable, and Ethelberta was suddenly
convinced that to involve Gwendoline in any such discussion would simply
be increasing her own burden, and adding worse confusion to her sister's
already confused existence.

'What were you going to say?' said the honest and unsuspecting
Gwendoline.

'I will put it off until to-morrow,' Ethelberta murmured gloomily; 'I
have a bad headache, and I am afraid I cannot stay with you after all.'

As she ascended the stairs, Ethelberta ached with an added pain not much
less than the primary one which had brought her down. It was that old
sense of disloyalty to her class and kin by feeling as she felt now which
caused the pain, and there was no escaping it. Gwendoline would have
gone to the ends of the earth for her: she could not confide a thought to
Gwendoline!

'If she only knew of that unworthy feeling of mine, how she would
grieve,' said Ethelberta miserably.

She next went up to the servants' bedrooms, and to where Cornelia slept.
On Ethelberta's entrance Cornelia looked up from a perfect wonder of a
bonnet, which she held in her hands. At sight of Ethelberta the look of
keen interest in her work changed to one of gaiety.

'I am so glad--I was just coming down,' Cornelia said in a whisper;
whenever they spoke as relations in this house it was in whispers. 'Now,
how do you think this bonnet will do? May I come down, and see how I
look in your big glass?' She clapped the bonnet upon her head. 'Won't
it do beautiful for Sunday afternoon?'

'It looks very attractive, as far as I can see by this light,' said
Ethelberta. 'But is it not rather too brilliant in colour--blue and red
together, like that? Remember, as I often tell you, people in town never
wear such bright contrasts as they do in the country.'

'O Berta!' said Cornelia, in a deprecating tone; 'don't object. If
there's