r family.

She had not thought of the significance of her speech. She was very
angry with Maulevrier for having held her up to ridicule before Mr.
Hammond, who already despised her, as she believed, and whose contempt
was more galling than it need have been, considering that he was a mere
casual visitor who would go away and return no more. Never till his
coming had she felt her deficiencies; but in his presence she writhed
under the sense of her unworthiness, and had an almost agonising
consciousness of all those faults which her grandmother had told her
about so often with not the slightest effect. In those days she had not
cared what Lady Maulevrier or any one else might say of her, or think of
her. She lived her life, and defied fortune. She was worse than her
reputation. To-day she felt it a bitter thing that she had grown to the
age of womanhood lacking all those graces and accomplishments which made
her sister adorable, and which might make even a plain woman charming.

Never till John Hammond's coming had she felt a pang of envy in the
contemplation of Lesbia's beauty or Lesbia's grace; but now she had so
keen a sense of the difference between herself and her sister that she
began to fear that this cruel pain must indeed be that lowest of all
vices. Even the difference in their gowns was a source of humiliation to
her how. Lesbia was looking her loveliest this morning, in a gown that
was all lace and soft Madras muslin, flowing, cloud-like; while Mary's
tailor gown, with its trim tight bodice, horn buttons, and kilted skirt,
seemed to cry aloud that it had been made for a Tomboy. And this tailor
gown was a costume to which Mary had condemned herself by her own folly.
Only a year ago, moved by an artistic admiration for Lesbia's delicate
breakfast gowns, Mary had told her grandmother that she would like to
have something of the same kind, whereupon the dowager, who did not take
the faintest interest in Mary's toilet, but who had a stern sense of
justice, replied--

'I do not think Lesbia's frocks and your habits will agree, but you can
have some pretty morning gowns if you like;' and the order had been
given for a confection in muslin and lace for Lady Mary.

Mary came down to breakfast one bright June morning, in the new frock,
feeling very proud of herself, and looking very pretty.

'Fine feathers make fine birds,' said Fraeulein Mueller. 'I should hardly
have known you.'

'I wish you would always dress l