ville, but she supposed
it was more rulable in New York.

During the afternoon she called at the Kenton apartment to consult the
ladies about what she ought to wear. She said she had nothing but a
black 'barege' along, and would that do with the hat she had on? She had
worn it to let them see, and now she turned her face from aide to side
to give them the effect of the plumes, that fell like a dishevelled
feather-duster round and over the crown. Mrs. Kenton could only say that
it would do, but she believed that it was the custom now for ladies to
take their hats off in the theatre.

Mrs. Bittridge gave a hoarse laugh. "Oh, dear! Then I'll have to fix my
hair two ways? I don't know what Clarence WILL say."

The mention of her son's name opened the way for her to talk of him in
relation to herself, and the rest of her stay passed in the celebration
of his filial virtues, which had been manifest from the earliest period.
She could not remember that she ever had to hit the child a lick, she
said, or that he had ever made her shed a tear.

When she went, Boyne gloomily inquired, "What makes her hair so much
darker at the roots than it is at the points?" and his mother snubbed
him promptly.

"You had no business to be here, Boyne. I don't like boys hanging about
where ladies are talking together, and listening."

This did not prevent Lottie from answering, directly for Boyne, and
indirectly for Ellen, "It's because it's begun to grow since the last
bleach."

It was easier to grapple with Boyne than with Lottie, and Mrs. Kenton
was willing to allow her to leave the room with her brother unrebuked.
She was even willing to have had the veil lifted from Mrs. Bittridge's
hair with a rude hand, if it world help Ellen.

"I don't want you to think, momma," said the girl, "that I didn't know
about her hair, or that I don't see how silly she is. But it's all the
more to his credit if he can be so good to her, and admire her. Would
you like him better if he despised her?"

Mrs. Kenton felt both the defiance and the secret shame from which it
sprang in her daughter's words; and she waited for a moment before she
answered, "I would like to be sure he didn't!"

"If he does, and if he hides it from her, it's the same as if he didn't;
it's better. But you all wish to dislike him."

"We don't wish to dislike him, Ellen, goodness knows. But I don't think
he would care much whether we disliked him or not. I am sure your poor
fathe