was a little
complacency sometimes betrayed, and some curiosity whether her father
had read the will. Ethel allowed what she had heard of the contents to
be extracted from her, and it certainly did not diminish Flora's secret
satisfaction in being 'somebody'.

She told the whole history of her visits; first, how cordial Lady
Leonora Langdale had been, and then, how happy she had been at
Glenbracken. The old Lord and Lady, and Marjorie, all equally charming
in their various ways; and Norman Ogilvie so good a son, and so highly
thought of in his own country.

"Did I tell you, Ethel, that he desired to be remembered to you?"

"Yes, you said so."

"What has Coralie done with it?" continued Flora, seeking in her
dressing-case. "She must have put it away with my brooches. Oh, no, here
it is. I had been looking for Cairngorm specimens in a shop, saying I
wanted a brooch that you would wear, when Norman Ogilvie came riding
after the carriage, looking quite hot and eager. He had been to some
other place, and hunted this one up. Is it not a beauty?"

It was one of the round Bruce brooches, of dark pebble, with a silver
fern-leaf lying across it, the dots of small Cairngorm stones. "The
Glenbracken badge, you know," continued Flora.

Ethel twisted it about in her fingers, and said, "Was not it meant for
you?"

"It was to oblige me, if you choose so to regard it," said Flora,
smiling. "He gave me no injunctions; but, you see, you must wear it now.
I shall not wear coloured brooches for a year."

Ethel sighed. She felt as if her black dress ought, perhaps, to be worn
for a nearer cause. She had a great desire to keep that Glenbracken
brooch; and surely it could not be wrong. To refuse it would be much
worse, and would only lead to Flora's keeping it, and not caring for it.

"Then it is your present, Flora?"

"If you like better to call it so, my dear. I find Norman Ogilvie is
going abroad in a few months. I think we ought to ask him here on his
way."

"Flora, I wish you would not talk about such things!"

"Do you really and truly, Ethel?"

"Certainly not, at such a time as this," said Ethel.

Flora was checked a little, and sat down to write to Marjorie Ogilvie.
"Shall I say you like the brooch, Ethel?" she asked presently.

"Say what is proper," said Ethel impatiently. "You know what I mean, in
the fullest sense of the word."

"Do I?" said Flora.

"I mean," said Ethel, "that you may say, simply and rationally,