times and in all seasons a precise and accurate
house-mistress. Harassed, as an actress must often be, by other cares;
sometimes exhausted with hard work; perhaps tempted now and again by the
self-satisfaction of a splendid triumph to let meaner concerns go
unheeded; all the same, she allowed nothing to interfere with her
domestic duties.

"Gerty," her father said, impatiently, to her a day or two before they
left London for the provinces, "what is the use of your going down to
these stores yourself? Surely you can send Jane or Marie. You really
waste far too much time over the veriest trifles: how can it matter what
sort of mustard we have?"

"And, indeed, I am glad to have something to convince me that I am a
human being and a woman," she had said, instantly, "something to be
myself in. I believe Providence intended me to be the manager of a Swiss
hotel."

This was one of the first occasions on which she had revealed to her
father that she had been thinking a good deal about her lot in life, and
was perhaps beginning to doubt whether the struggle to become a great
and famous actress was the only thing worth living for. But he paid
little attention to it at the time. He had a vague impression that it
was scarcely worth discussing about. He was pretty well convinced that
his daughter was clever enough to argue herself into any sort of belief
about herself, if she should take some fantastic notion into her head.
It was not until that night in Manchester that he began to fear there
might be something serious in these expressions of discontent.

On this bright October morning Miss Gertrude White was about to begin
her domestic inquiries, and was leaving her room humming cheerfully to
herself something about the bonnie Glenogie of the song, when she was
again stopped by her sister, who was carrying a bundle.

"I have got the skins," she said, gloomily. "Jane took them out."

"Will you look at them?" the sister said, kindly. "They are very pretty.
If they were not a present, I would give them to you, to make a jacket
of them."

"_I_ wear them?" said she. "Not likely!"

Nevertheless she had sufficient womanly curiosity to let her elder
sister open the parcel; and then she took up the otter-skins one by one,
and looked at them.

"I don't think much of them," she said.

The other bore this taunt patiently.

"They are only big moles, aren't they? And I thought moleskin was only
worn by working-people."

"I am a w