fa when there is the wide, glowing out
of doors.

"Our quiet times will soon come to an end," says Gertrude,
complainingly. "Marcia returns presently, and Laura will no doubt come
back for a visit, but we are rid of her as a permanency," and she
flavors her speech with a bitter little laugh.

"What is Laura like? She is only a year older than I," rejoins Violet.

"But ten years wiser. She has achieved the great aim of a woman's
life,--a rich husband."

Violet colors delicately. _She_ has a rich husband, but it was no aim
of her life.

"What is Marcia like?" she inquires, timidly.

"She will fret you to death in a week, a faded flirt with the air of
sixteen, who sets up for a genius. Get her married if you can. It is
fortunate that there is some dispensation of fate to take people out of
your way."

"I never had a sister," Violet says, half regretfully.

"Well, you will have enough of us," is the rejoinder. "Though I shall
try to make no trouble. A book and a sofa satisfy me."

"Were you always ill? And you must have been pretty! You would be
pretty now if you had some color and clearness, such as exercise would
give you."

Gertrude is comforted by the naive compliment. No one ever praises her
now.

"I was pretty to some one a long while ago," she says, pathetically.

It suggests a lover. "Oh, do tell me!" cries Violet, kneeling by the
sofa. Marriage is marriage, of course, and Denise has instructed her in
its duties, but is not love something accidental, not always happening
in the regular sequence?

"It is not much," confesses Gertrude, "but it once was a great deal to
me. I was engaged, and we loved each other dearly. I was soon to be
married, the very first of them all, but _he_ went wrong and had to go
away in disgrace. It broke my heart!"

"Oh!" and Violet kisses her, with tears on her cheek. No wonder she is
so sad and spiritless.

"I don't mind now. Perhaps it would have been no end of a bother, and
I'm not fond of children. Cecil is the least troublesome of any I ever
saw, but I couldn't have her about all the time, as you do. Yes, it
seemed at first as if I must die," she says, in a curious
past-despairing tone.

"He may come back," suggests Violet.

"Oh, no! And then one couldn't be disgraced, you know! But it was mean
for Laura always to be flaunting her good fortune in my face. I'm glad
she is married, and I only wish Marcia was going off. We could settle
to comfort the rest of our li