joy yourself at Stanhope
Castle?"

"Enjoy myself! Are you making fun of me? Ethel, dear, it was the most
awful experience. You never can imagine such a life, and such women.
They were dressed for a walk at six o'clock; they had breakfast at
half-past seven. They went to the village and inspected cottages, and
gave lessons in housekeeping or dressmaking or some other drudgery till
noon. They walked back to the Castle for lunch. They attended to their
own improvement from half-past one until four, had lessons in drawing
and chemistry, and, I believe, electricity. They had another walk, and
then indulged themselves with a cup of tea. They dressed and received
visitors, and read science or theology between whiles. There was always
some noted preacher or scholar at the dinner table. The conversation was
about acids and explosives, or the planets or bishops, or else on the
never, never-ending subject of elevating the workingman and building
schools for his children. Basil, of course, enjoyed it. He thought he
was giving me a magnificent object lesson. He was never done praising
the ladies Mary Elinor and Adelaide Stanhope. I'm sure I wish he had
married one or all of them--and I told him so."

"You could not be so cruel, Dora."

"I managed it with the greatest ease imaginable. He was always trotting
at their side. They spoke of him as 'the most pious young man.' I have
no doubt they were all in love with him. I hope they were. I used to
pretend to be very much in love when they were present. I dare say it
made them wretched. Besides, they blushed and thought me improper. Basil
didn't approve, either, so I hit all round."

She rose at this memory and shook out her silk skirts, and walked up and
down the room with an air that was the visible expression of the mockery
and jealousy in her heart. This was an entirely different Dora to the
lachrymose, untidy wife at the Savoy Hotel in London, and Ethel had a
momentary pang at the thought of the suffering which was responsible for
the change.

"If I had thought, Dora, you were so uncomfortable, I would have asked
Basil and you to the Court."

"You saw I was not happy when I was at the Savoy."

"I thought you and Basil had had a kind of lovers' quarrel, and that it
would blow over in an hour or two; no one likes to meddle with an affair
of that kind. Are you going to Newport, or is Mrs. Denning in New York?"

"That is another trouble, Ethel. When I wrote mother I wanted to c