rs to show off her beauty to the best advantage; and the grey
golf-cape and knitted cap, set carelessly over her smoke-like locks,
appeared at once the ideal garments for a winter promenade. Pixie
slipped her arm underneath the cloak to hang on to her sister's arm, and
the three set off together across the snow-bound park.

"I suppose you know a great deal about ruins, since you are so much
interested in ours," said Esmeralda, as an opening to the conversation.
"People are always interested in things they understand. That's the
only reason why I should like to be clever and learned--it would make
life so much more satisfying. It doesn't amuse me in the least to see
old walls, and bits of pillars sticking out of the earth. I'd pull them
all down and build something new in their place if I had the chance, but
people who understand are quite different. Some people came here once
on a picnic from Dublin, and father gave them permission to see over the
grounds. Of course it rained, but they all stood round on the damp,
soaking grass while an old gentleman gave a lecture about that miserable
little ruin. He said something about the shape of the windows, and they
all took notes and sketches and snapshots, as if they had never seen
anything so wonderful in their lives. There is a bit of a pillar two
yards high. He prosed away about that until I had to yawn, but they
seemed to like it. Some of them were quite young too. There was a girl
rather like Bridgie, with such a pretty hat!" Esmeralda heaved a sigh
of melancholy recollection. "She stood there and let the rain soak
through the ribbons while she sketched the stupid old things. I envied
her so! I thought, `Why can't I be interested in ruins too, and then I
should have something to think about, and to amuse myself with when the
time feels so long?'"

"Does the time seem long to you, then? Do you find it dull over here?"
asked Hilliard, in a tone that was almost tender in its anxious
solicitude; and Esmeralda heaved a sigh of funereal proportions,
delighted to find herself supplied with a listener ready to sympathise
with her woes. A home audience is proverbially stoical, and after the
jeers and smiles of brothers and sisters, it was a refreshing change to
wake a note of distress at the very beginning of a conversation. She
became suddenly conscious of a feeling of acute enjoyment, but
endeavoured to look pensive, as befitted the occasion, and rolled her
gre