ave not found it out, if she is. Up to
this time she always thinks as I think. Now she has given you the
tokens of remembrance she has brought home for you; what do you think
_I_ have got?"

"O aunt, nothing more!" exclaimed Anne.

"Clarissa and I are two people, if neither of us is a character,
however," said Mrs. Candy. "Her gifts are not my gifts. But mine shall
be different from hers. And if there is more than one character among
us, I should like to find it out; and this will do it."

So saying, she fetched out her purse and presented to each of her
sister's children a bank-note for twenty-five dollars.

Mrs. Englefield exclaimed and protested. But Mrs. Candy laid her hand
on her sister's mouth, and declared she must please herself in her own
way.

"What do you want us to do with this, Aunt Candy?" Matilda inquired in
a sort of contemplative wonder.

"Just whatever will please you, will please each of you, best. Only
that. That is my condition, girls, if I may call it so. You are not to
spend that money for any claims of duty or conscience; but simply in
that way which will afford you the highest pleasure."

Thanks were warm and gratification very high; and in the best mood in
the world the new relations sat down to talk to each other and study
each other for the remainder of the day. Clarissa pleased her cousins.
She was undoubtedly extremely pretty, with big, brown, honest eyes,
that gave a good full look into the face she was speaking to; beautiful
hair a little lighter in colour, and great sweetness of outline and
feature. Yet she was reserved; very quiet; very self-possessed--to a
degree that almost carried an air of superiority in the minds of her
cousins. Those large brown eyes of hers would be lifted swiftly to the
face of some one speaking, and then go down again, with no sign of
agreeing or disagreeing--indeed, with no sign of her thought at all;
but she _had_ thoughts of course; why should she not show them, as her
cousins did? It was almost supercilious, to the fancy of Anne and
Letitia; Matilda and Maria were fascinated. Then her hands were more
delicate than those of Mrs. Englefield's children; and there were one
or two costly rings on them. Anne and Letty did not understand their
value, but nevertheless even they could guess that they belonged to a
superior description of jewellery from that which was displayed beneath
the glass cases of Mr. Kurtz the watchmaker of Shadywalk. Then
Clarissa's