full of jarring
elements. Even Cecil grows naughty with the superabundant vitality of
childhood, and is inclined to tyrannize over Violet, who often submits
for very lack of spirit, and desire of love.

They are always together, these two. They take long drives in the
carriage, and Mrs. Grandon complains that everything must be given over
to that silly, red-haired thing! Gertrude does battle for the hair one
morning.

"I do not call it red," she says, with a decision good to hear from the
languid woman. "It is a kind of bright brown, chestnut. Mrs. McLeod's
is red."

"Auburn, my dear," retorts Mrs. Grandon mockingly. "If you are
sensitively polite in the one instance, you might be so in the other.
One is light red, the other dark red."

"One is an ugly bricky red," persists Gertrude, "and no one would call
the other red at all."

"I call it red," very positively.

"Very well," says the daughter, angrily, "you cannot make it other than
the very handsome tint it is, no matter what you call it."

"There has been a very foolish enthusiasm about red hair, I know, but
that has mostly died out," replies the mother, contemptuously, and
keeps the last word.

Gertrude actually allows herself to be persuaded into a drive with "the
children" that afternoon. She and Violet happen to stumble upon a book
they have both read, a lovely and touching German story, and they
discuss it thoroughly. Violet is fond of German poems.

"Then you read German?" Gertrude says. "I did a little once, but it was
such a bore. I haven't the strength for anything but the very lightest
amusement."

"Oh," Violet exclaims, "it must be dreadful always to be ill and weak!
Papa was ill a good deal, but he used to get well again, and he was
nearly always going about!"

"I haven't the strength to go about much."

"I wonder," Violet says, "if you were to take a little drive every day;
Cecil and I would be so glad."

Gertrude glances into the bright, eager face, with its velvety eyes and
shining hair. It _is_ beautiful hair, soft and fine as spun silk, and
curling a little about the low, broad forehead, rippling on the top,
and gathered into a careless coil at the back that seems almost too
large for the head. Why are they all going to hate her? she wonders.
She is more comfortable in the house than madame would be as a
mistress, and she will never object to anything Floyd chooses to do for
his mother and sisters. One couldn't feel dependent on Vi