."

"Confidences, my dear. If he has told you that much, it won't take you
long to hook him. We giddy girls have no chance against you deep, demure
stay-at-homes. The dear men dance and flirt with us, but they don't
propose. How I wish I had learned to cook, or even to bottle plums!
Fancy having a man all to yourself in a kitchen like this; making
a cake, with your sleeves tucked up to the elbows, and no one to
interrupt--why, I guarantee, he'd propose in ten minutes." She tapped
her front teeth with her finger. "I have to go to the dentist to-morrow.
I do hate it so, but I've got to have something done to one of my front
teeth. I'm thinking of getting the man to fill it with gold, and put a
small diamond in the middle. That ought to be quite fetching, don't you
think?"

"It certainly would be unique."

"I think I'll go along to Tresco's shop, and get the stone."

"But don't you think the sight of a diamond in a tooth would pall after
a while? or perhaps you might loosen it with a bit of biscuit, and
swallow it. A diet of diamonds would pall, too, I fancy."

"It's not the expense." Rachel pouted as she spoke. "The question is
whether it's done among smart people."

"You could but try--your friends would soon tell you."

"I believe it's quite the thing over in Melbourne."

"Then why not in Timber Town?"

"But perhaps it's only amongst actresses that it's 'the thing.'"

"So that the glitter of their smiles may be intensified?"

Rachel had risen from her seat. "I must be going," she said. "I looked
in for a minute, and I've stopped half-an-hour."

"Then won't you stay just a little longer--I'm going to make some tea."

"It's very tempting." Rachel took off her gloves, and displayed her
begemmed fingers. "I think I _must_ stop."

Rose infused the tea in a brown earthenware pot, and filled two china
cups, in the saucers of which she placed two very old ornamented silver
teaspoons.

The two girls sat at opposite sides of the white-pine table, in complete
contrast; the one dark, the other fair; the one arrayed in purple and
fine linen, the other dressed in plain starched print and a kitchen
apron; the one the spoilt pet of an infatuated father, the other
accustomed to reproof and domestic toil.

But they met on common ground in their taste for tea. With lips, equally
pretty, they were sipping the fragrant beverage, when a hoarse voice
resounded through the house.

"Rosebud, Rosebud, my gal! Where's my slip