y of
cookery-books to discover.

Lord Skye's ball and Sybil's interest in it were a great relief to
Madeleine's mind, and she now turned her whole soul to frivolity. Never,
since she was seventeen, had she thought or talked so much about a ball,
as now about this ball to the Grand-Duchess. She wore out her own brain
in the effort to amuse Sybil. She took her to call on the Princess;
she would have taken her to call on the Grand Lama had he come to
Washington. She instigated her to order and send to Lord Skye a mass of
the handsomest roses New York could afford. She set her at work on her
dress several days before there was any occasion for it, and this famous
costume had to be taken out, examined, criticised, and discussed with
unending interest. She talked about the dress, and the Princess, and
the ball, till her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, and her brain
refused to act. From morning till night, for one entire week, she ate,
drank, breathed, and dreamt of the ball. Everything that love could
suggest or labour carry out, she did, to amuse and occupy her sister.

She knew that all this was only temporary and palliative, and that more
radical measures must be taken to secure Sybil's happiness. On this
subject she thought in secret until both head and heart ached. One thing
and one thing only was clear: if Sybil loved Carrington, she should
have him. How Madeleine expected to bring about this change of heart
in Carrington, was known only to herself. She regarded men as creatures
made for women to dispose of, and capable of being transferred like
checks, or baggage-labels, from one woman to another, as desired. The
only condition was that he should first be completely disabused of the
notion that he could dispose of himself. Mrs. Lee never doubted that she
could make Carrington fall in love with Sybil provided she could place
herself beyond his reach. At all events, come what might, even though
she had to accept the desperate alternative offered by Mr. Ratcliffe,
nothing should be allowed to interfere with Sybil's happiness. And thus
it was, that, for the first time, Mrs. Lee began to ask herself whether
it was not better to find the solution of her perplexities in marriage.

Would she ever have been brought to this point without the violent
pressure of her sister's supposed interests? This is one of those
questions which wise men will not ask, because it is one which the
wisest man or woman cannot answer. Upon