not so easily
forget when her whims are crossed. I dare say she will send me to
Coventry all the week; but I can't help that. Nothing would induce me to
drive her over to Staplehurst, and she will hardly carry out her threat
of going without me."

"Of course not," and Bessie fairly laughed.

"No, it was an idle threat; but all the same it is very vexatious." But
Bessie would not let him dwell on the grievance. She began telling him
about Tom, and a funny scrape he had got into last term; and this led to
a conversation about her home, and here Bessie grew eloquent; and she
was in the midst of a description of Cliffe and its environs when Mrs.
Sefton reappeared, looking fagged and weary, and informed them that Edna
had a headache and had retired to bed.

CHAPTER XII.

THE FIRST SUNDAY AT THE GRANGE.

The unfortunate dispute between Edna and her brother had taken place on
Saturday evening, and as Bessie went up to her room that night she made
up her mind that the first Sunday at Oatlands would be a failure, as far
as enjoyment was concerned.

"I never can be happy myself unless I see others happy round me,"
thought Bessie, rather mournfully; "and Edna has taken this
disappointment so badly that I am afraid she will make us all suffer for
it." But in this opinion she was wrong. Her acquaintance with Edna had
been brief, and she had no suspicion of the intense pride that blended
with Edna's wilfulness, nor of the tenacity, strange in such a bright
young creature, that could quietly maintain its purpose under a
careless, light-hearted exterior.

Edna had evidently been ashamed of her outburst of temper on the
previous evening, for she came down on Sunday morning looking a little
pale and subdued, and very gentle in her manner to her mother and
Bessie. She seemed to ignore Richard; beyond a cold good morning she
did not vouchsafe him a word or a look; and as all his overtures toward
reconciliation were passed over in chilling silence, he soon left her to
herself.

They all went to church together, and as they walked through the lanes
Edna seemed to recover her buoyancy. She laughed and chatted with her
mother, and made sprightly speeches in her usual way; and no one could
have judged from her manner that there was a spot of bitterness under
the smooth surface--an angry consciousness that Richard had dared to
cross her will.

Ah, well! there are many beside Edna who enter God's house with their
darling sin