so masterful. She always wants me to
enjoy myself in her way, and being strong, she doesn't understand people
who aren't."

"That's so, I reckon. Still your sister's a fine woman, Ellen--the best
I've known."

"I'm sure she is," snapped Ellen.

"But she shouldn't ought to have made you come this afternoon, since you
were feeling poorly."

"Don't let out I said anything to you about it, Arthur--it might make
her angry. Oh, don't make her angry with me."

Sec.11

During the next few weeks it seemed to Joanna that her sister was a
little more alert. She went out more among the neighbours, and when
Joanna's friends came to see her, she no longer sulked remotely, but
came into the parlour, and was willing to play the piano and talk and be
entertaining. Indeed, once or twice when Joanna was busy she had sat
with Arthur Alce after tea and made herself most agreeable--so he said.

The fact was that Ellen had a new interest in life. Those words sown
casually in her thoughts at the show were bearing remarkable fruit. She
had pondered them well, and weighed her chances, and come to the
conclusion that it would be a fine and not impossible thing to win
Arthur Alce from Joanna to herself.

She did not see why she should not be able to do so. She was prettier
than her sister, younger, more accomplished, better educated. Alce on
his side must be tired of wooing without response. When he saw there was
a chance of Ellen, he would surely take it; and then--what a triumph!
How people would talk and marvel when they saw Joanna Godden's life-long
admirer turn from her to her little sister! They would be forced to
acknowledge Ellen as a superior and enchanting person. Of course there
was the disadvantage that she did not particularly want Arthur Alce, but
her schemings did not take her as far as matrimony.

She was shrewd enough to see that the best way to capture Alce was to
make herself as unlike her sister as possible. With him she was like a
little soft cat, languid and sleek, or else delicately playful. She
appealed to his protecting strength, and in time made him realize that
she was unhappy in her home life and suffered under her sister's
tyranny. She had hoped that this might help detach him from Joanna, but
his affection was of that passive, tenacious kind which tacitly accepts
all the faults of the beloved. He was always ready to sympathize with
Ellen, and once or twice expostulated with Joanna--but his loyalty
sh