, and Diana should change her dressmaker. The number
of her own dresses was large; and as to their colors and make, Mrs.
Colwood, who had helped to put away some of them, could only suppose
that tropical surroundings made tropical tastes. At the same time the
contrast between Miss Fanny's wardrobe, and what she herself reported,
in every tone of grievance and disgust, of the family poverty, was
surprising, though no doubt a great deal of the finery had been as
cheaply bought as possible.

By luncheon-time Diana had shown some symptoms of fatigue, perhaps--Mrs.
Colwood hoped!--of revolt. She had been already sharply questioned as to
the number of servants she kept and the wages they received, as to the
people in the neighborhood who gave parties, and the ages and incomes of
such young or unmarried men as might be met with at these parties. Miss
Merton had boasted already of two love-affairs--one the unsuccessful
engagement in Barbadoes, the other--"a near thing"--which had enlivened
the voyage to England; and she had extracted a promise from Diana to ask
the young solicitor she had met with in the train--Mr. Fred Birch--to
lunch, without delay. Meanwhile she had not--of her own initiative--said
one word of those educational objects, in pursuit of which she was
supposed to have come to England. Diana had proposed to her the names of
certain teachers both of music and languages--names which she had
obtained with much trouble. Miss Fanny had replied, rather carelessly,
that she would think about it.

It was at this that the eager sweetness of Diana's manner to her cousin
had shown its first cooling. And Mrs. Colwood had curiously observed
that at the first sign of shrinking on her part, Miss Fanny's demeanor
had instantly changed. It had become sugared and flattering to a degree.
Everything in the house was "sweet"; the old silver used at table, with
the Mallory crest, was praised extravagantly; the cooking no less. Yet
still Diana's tired silence had grown; and the watching eyes of this
amazing young woman had been, in Mrs. Colwood's belief, now insolently
and now anxiously, aware of it.

Insolence!--that really, if one came to think of it, had been the note
of Miss Merton's whole behavior from the beginning--an ill-concealed,
hardly restrained insolence, toward the girl, two years older than
herself, who had received her with such tender effusion, and was,
moreover, in a position to help her so materially. What could it