You may be right," she said, "in all you say, for of this I am
convinced, I should be much happier now if, like you, I had refused to
try for the Rose. As it is, I shall never think of this day without
pain, neither can I feel for Lisette the affection I once felt for her
before we were rivals to each other. From the first it has been a cause
of much sorrow to me, for, from the first, I was aware of the preference
given to Lisette; and from that moment I believe I have been in one
constant state of vexation or painful excitement."

At that moment Mimi came into the room to tell her sisters that their
parents were within sight; and, kissing Caliste warmly, the child
expressed her displeasure that she had not been the chosen Rosiere. "Next
to you, Victorine," she said, "I am sure Caliste deserved it, and I know
it was only given to Lisette because she is a favourite at the chateau
through Madame Goton, the marchande-du-mode."

Victorine tried to silence the child, and succeeded by proposing that
they should go down to meet their friends, and scarcely were they in time
to receive the party.

Caliste had shed no tears, but the eyes of Mimi were red and inflamed,
and slight traces of the same kind of sorrow were visible on the
countenance of Victorine. Mimi was not slow in explaining the cause of
her grief, for resolutely did she declare aloud, "that if Monsieur le
Baron only knew her sisters as well as she did, Victorine would be chosen
first, and Caliste next, before Lisette."

Sincerely did Victorine feel for her elder sister when the chosen Rosiere
entered the cottage. With an air of affected indifference Lisette
replied to the congratulations of the neighbours, and even professed to
think that the choice had been a partial one. "I could never fancy that
I should have to take precedence of an elder sister," she said, "and then
Felicie Durand is so charming a person that I assure you I felt it no
little compliment to be chosen in the trial with her and Caliste. As the
youngest of the three you know, I could not have expected to be Rosiere,
for I am only sixteen, and Caliste is nearly three years older."

Thus did she enumerate, with an assumed air of innocent unconsciousness,
every reason she could think of for her own non-election--not so much to
vex Caliste, as she most assuredly did, as to raise her own merits the
more above her competitors; for she knew not these words of Holy Writ:
"If we live in the Spiri