e division between
mother and daughter would only be made wider than ever.

She started; the door opened and her sister's voice called: "Do come,
Gertrude, I can't make up my mind about that new red."

The young girl crossed the hall and a moment after stood in her
mother's drawing-room, before her mother, a small woman with almost too
rosy cheeks, and an exceedingly obstinate expression about the full
mouth. She sat on the sofa beneath the large Swiss landscape, the work
of a celebrated Duesseldorf master--Mrs. Baumhagen was fond of relating
that she had paid five hundred dollars for it--and tossed about with
her small hands, covered with diamonds, a mass of dress patterns.

"Gertrude," she cried, "this would do for you." And she held out a bit
of blue silk. "It is a pity you are so different, it is so nice for two
sisters to dress alike."

"What is suitable for a married woman, is not fit for a girl," declared
Mrs. Jenny. "Gertrude ought to get married, she is twenty years old."

"Ah! that reminds me,"--the mother had been turning over the patterns
during the conversation,--"there is that letter from your last admirer,
I must answer it. What am I to write him?--

"See here, Jenny, this brown ground with the blue spots is pretty,
isn't it?--It is really a great bore to answer letters like that; why
don't you do it yourself?"

"I am afraid my answer would not be dispassionate enough," replied the
girl, calmly.

"Do you like him?" asked her sister.

The young girl ignored the question.

"I am afraid I might be bitter, and nothing is required but a purely
business-like answer, as the question was purely one of business."

"You are delicious!" laughed the young wife. "O what a pity you had not
lived in the middle ages, when the knights were obliged to go through
so long a probation! Little goose, you must learn to take the world as
it is. Do you suppose Arthur would have married _me_ if I had had
nothing? I assure you he would never have thought of it! And do you
suppose I would have taken _him_ if I had not known he was in good
circumstances? Never! And what would you have more from us? we are a
comparatively happy couple."

Gertrude looked at her sister in surprise, with a questioning look in
her blue eyes.

"Comparatively happy?" she repeated in a low tone.

"Good gracious, yes, he has his whims--one has to put up with them,"
declared her sister,

"Pray don't quarrel to-day," said Mrs. Baumhagen, taki