inly to my niece,
Persuade Ovid to go?"

If Carmina had possessed an elder sister, with a plain personal
appearance and an easy conscience, not even that sister could have
matched the perfect composure with which Miss Minerva replied.

"I don't possess your happy faculty of expressing yourself, Mrs.
Gallilee. But, if I had been in your place, I should have said to the
best of my poor ability exactly what you have said now." She bent her
head with a graceful gesture of respect, and looked at Carmina with a
gentle sisterly interest while she stirred her tea.

At the very opening of the skirmish, Mrs. Gallilee was defeated. She had
failed to provoke the slightest sign of jealousy, or even of
ill-temper. Unquestionably the most crafty and most cruel woman of the
two--possessing the most dangerously deceitful manner, and the most
mischievous readiness of language--she was, nevertheless, Miss Minerva's
inferior in the one supreme capacity of which they both stood in need,
the capacity for self-restraint.

She showed this inferiority on expressing her thanks. The underlying
malice broke through the smooth surface that was intended to hide it.
"I am apt to doubt myself," she said; "and such sound encouragement as
yours always relieves me. Of course I don't ask you for more than a word
of advice. Of course I don't expect _you_ to persuade Ovid."

"Of course not!" Miss Minerva agreed. "May I ask for a little more sugar
in my tea?"

Mrs. Gallilee turned to Carmina.

"Well, my dear? I have spoken to you, as I might have spoken to one
of my own daughters, if she had been of your age. Tell me frankly, in
return, whether I may count on your help."

Still pale and downcast, Carmina obeyed. "I will do my best, if you wish
it. But--"

"Yes? Go on."

She still hesitated. Mrs. Gallilee tried gentle remonstrance. "My child,
surely you are not afraid of me?"

She was certainly afraid. But she controlled herself.

"You are Ovid's mother, and I am only his cousin," she resumed. "I don't
like to hear you say that my influence over him is greater than yours."

It was far from the poor girl's intention; but there was an implied
rebuke in this. In her present state of irritation, Mrs. Gallilee felt
it.

"Come! come!" she said. "Don't affect to be ignorant, my dear, of what
you know perfectly well."

Carmina lifted her head. For the first time in the experience of the
two elder women, this gentle creature showed that she could r