me?'

Jane rose ostentatiously from her place and opened the window and
consulted a thermometer that hung outside.

'Still freezing hard,' she said, and returned to her seat again.

'You are rather a brick, Jane,' said Kitty.

'To-morrow,' said Jane, 'I shall certainly write to your father urging
his immediate return before you begin to grow grey-haired.'

'You 've had a fairly odious Christmas Day,' said Kitty, not noticing
the interruption. 'You 've had to dry Miss Abingdon's tears, and
listen to Canon Wrottesley reading aloud, and you have had to be hearty
to carol-singers and to waft holly-berries in the faces of mothers.
Why don't you throw something at me when I come to your room in the
middle of the night as cross as a bear with a sore head, and begin to
grumble at you?'

This remark Jane considered serious. 'The end of it will be, that you
'll get engaged to be married, Kitty,' she said, 'and then I shall jeer
at you and recall to you every one of your past flirtations, and all
your good resolutions about remaining single, and being happy ever
after.'

'Is it really still Christmas Day?' said Kitty. 'I thought it began
quite a week ago, and that we had had nights and nights of wassail
bowls and old memories and Christmas-card cheerfulness.' She gathered
up her hair-pins and brushes and gave a yawn. 'If it is nearly twelve
o'clock I suppose I ought to go,' she said.

'I am not a bit sleepy,' quoth Jane.

'Apart from the fact of my winter being dull,' said Kitty, 'with my
beloved parent in Rome, my temper is never proof against giving way
when any one reads aloud to me. The story of the French vicomte is
really answerable for my present horrible state of mind.'

'One always connects reading aloud with sick-beds and work-parties,'
said Jane. 'When you are ill, Kitty, I intend to come and read good
books to you.'

'Mrs. Avory encouraged the canon,' said Kitty. 'I found out afterwards
that she had read the story before, and yet she gave a sort of
surprised giggle at everything.'

'The Wrottesleys are being awfully good to her,' said Jane excusingly.

Kitty was still gazing into the fire; her tone when she spoke was that
of a sensible person considering some subject only remotely interesting
to her. 'I suppose,' she said steadily, but with a touch of curiosity,
'that Mrs. Avory will always continue to think that to be true for ever
and ever to Toffy is the most noble and virtuous action in the