b indiscriminately whatever idiotcy may
happen to be around one, and go with the crowd."

"Nonsense!" cried Algitha, who had no sympathy with these passionate
discouragements that alternated, in Hadria, with equally passionate
exaltations.

"When you have gone, I will ask Mrs. Gordon to teach me the spirit of
acquiescence, and one of those distracting games--besique or halma, or
some of the other infernal pastimes that heaven decrees for recalcitrant
spirits in need of crushing discipline."

"I think I see you!" Algitha exclaimed with a dispirited laugh.

"It will be a trial," Hadria admitted; "but it is said that suffering
strengthens the character. You may look forward before long, to claiming
as sister a creature of iron purpose."

"I wonder, I wonder," cried Algitha, bending her fine head; "we owe
everything to her."

"I know we do. It's of no use disguising the unpleasant side of the
matter. A mother disappointed in her children must be a desperately
unhappy woman. She has nothing left; for has she not resigned everything
for them? But is sacrifice for ever to follow on sacrifice? Is life to
go rolling after life, like the cheeses that the idiot in the fable sent
running downhill, the one to fetch the other back?"

"Yes, for ever," said Algitha, "until a few dare to break through the
tradition, and then everyone will wonder at its folly. If only I could
talk the matter over, in a friendly spirit, with mother, but she won't
let me. Ah! if it were not that one is born with feelings and energies
and ambitions of one's own, parents might treat one as a showman treats
his marionettes, and we should all be charmed to lie prone on our backs,
or to dance as may be convenient to our creators. But, as it is, the
life of a marionette--however affectionate the wire-pullers--does become
monotonous after a time."

"As to that," said the younger sister, with a little raising of the
brows, as if half shrinking from what she meant to say, "I think most
parents regard their children with such favourable eyes, not so much
because they are _they_ as because they are _theirs_."

The sisters paced the length of the garden without speaking. Then Hadria
came to a standstill at the sun-dial, at the crossing of the paths, and
began absently to trace the figures of the hours, with the stalk of a
rose.

"After all," she said, "parents are presumably not actuated by
humanitarian motives in bringing one into this wild world. They do