worked from the misty dawn,
Till the east was golden and red;
But the dreamer's dream which he thought to scorn,
Lived on when they both were dead..."

"I asked him three times over if he would have another cup of coffee,
and he stared at me as if he were daft! I believe he _is_ half daft at
times, and he will grow worse and worse, if Margot encourages him like
this!" Agnes announced to her father, on his weary return from City.

It was one of Agnes's exemplary habits to refuse all invitations which
could prevent her being at home to welcome her father every afternoon,
and assist him to tea and scones, accompanied by a minute _resume_ of
the bad news of the day. What the housemaid had broken; what the cat
had spilt; the parlourmaid's impertinences; the dressmaker's
delinquencies; Ronald's vapourings; the new and unabashed transgressions
of Margot--each in its turn was dropped into the tired man's cup with
the lumps of sugar, and stirred round with the cream. There was no
escaping the ordeal. On the hottest day of summer there was the boiling
tea, with the hot muffins, and the rich, indigestible cake, exactly as
they had appeared amidst the ice and snows of January; and the
accompanied recital hardly varied more. It was a positive relief to
hear that the chimney had smoked, or the parrot had had a fit.

Once a year Agnes departed on a holiday, handing over the keys to
Margot, who meekly promised to follow in her footsteps; and then,
heigho! for a fortnight of Bohemia, with every arrangement upside down,
and appearing vastly improved by the change of position. Instead of tea
in the drawing-room, two easy-chairs on the balcony overlooking the
Park; cool iced drinks sipped through straws, and luscious dishes of
fruit. Instead of Agnes, stiff and starched and tailor-made, a radiant
vision in muslin and laces, with a ruffled golden head, and distracting
little feet peeping out from beneath the frills.

"Isn't this fun?" cried the vision. "Don't you feel quite frivolous and
Continental? Let's pretend we are a newly-married couple, and you adore
me, and can't deny a thing I ask! There was a blouse in Bond Street
this morning... Sweetest darling, wouldn't you like me to buy it to-
morrow, and show me off in it to your friends? I told them to send it
home on approval. I knew you couldn't bear to see your little girl
unhappy for the sake of four miserable guineas!"

This sort of treatment was very agreeab