spared none of her party except her kind mother, to whom Ethel
always was kind, and her father, whom, since his illnesses, she tended
with much benevolence and care. But she did battle with Lady Kew
repeatedly, coming to her Aunt Julia's rescue, on whom her mother as
usual exercised her powers of torturing. She made Barnes quail before
her by the shafts of contempt which she flashed at him; and she did not
spare Lord Kew, whose good-nature was no shield against her scorn. The
old queen-mother was fairly afraid of her; she even left off beating
Lady Julia when Ethel came in, of course taking her revenge in the young
girl's absence, but trying in her presence to soothe and please her.
Against Lord Kew the young girl's anger was most unjust, and the more
cruel because the kindly young nobleman never spoke a hard word of any
one mortal soul, and, carrying no arms, should have been assaulted by
none. But his very good-nature seemed to make his young opponent only
the more wrathful; she shot because his honest breast was bare; it bled
at the wounds which she inflicted. Her relatives looked at her surprised
at her cruelty, and the young man himself was shocked in his dignity and
best feelings by his cousin's wanton ill-humour.

Lady Kew fancied she understood the cause of this peevishness, and
remonstrated with Miss Ethel. "Shall we write a letter to Lucerne, and
order Dick Tinto back again?" said her ladyship. "Are you such a fool,
Ethel, as to be hankering after that young scapegrace, and his yellow
beard? His drawings are very pretty. Why, I think he might earn a couple
of hundred a year as a teacher, and nothing would be easier than to
break your engagement with Kew, and whistle the drawing-master back
again."

Ethel took up the whole heap of Clive's drawings, lighted a taper,
carried the drawings to the fireplace, and set them in a blaze. "A very
pretty piece of work," says Lady Kew, "and which proves satisfactorily
that you don't care for the young Clive at all. Have we arranged a
correspondence? We are cousins, you know; we may write pretty cousinly
letters to one another." A month before the old lady would have attacked
her with other arms than sarcasm, but she was scared now, and dared to
use no coarser weapons. "Oh!" cried Ethel in a transport, "what a life
ours is, and how you buy and sell, and haggle over your children! It
is not Clive I care about, poor boy. Our ways of life are separate.
I cannot break from my