-fashioned." Annie laughed uncertainly. She never quite understood
Elizabeth, and felt she ought to rebuke her frivolity. "No, I'm not.
What would become of Baby if his mother----"

"Turned goat? But say, I'd love to learn just to see what it was like
to go out every day and be a--what is it?--a social success. I believe
that is what Aunt Margaret would like."

Annie rebuked her gently. She was always just a little afraid of
Lizzie. The wild streak seemed to be in abeyance lately, but it might
break out in a new form any day.

Their arrival at the Raymond home forbade her admonishing her at any
length. It was a beautiful house--a fine red brick with white porch
pillars, of course, and surrounded by a spacious lawn dotted with
shrubbery and flower-beds. Its only drawback was its position, it
being placed on the wrong side of Elm Crescent, the street bordering
Sunset Hill. In consequence the Raymonds had suffered somewhat from
social obscurity, and this At Home was partially to serve the purpose
of raising them nearer the level of the proud homes on the hilltop.

Elizabeth became suddenly shy and nervous as she followed her sister up
the broad steps and saw the rooms crowded with fashionably dressed
people. She was not generally conscious of her clothes, but she could
not help feeling, as she glanced over the sea of bonnets and hats and
white kid gloves, that her muslin dress and blue ribbons must look very
shabby indeed. And somehow Annie had become transformed. Upon
starting out she had appeared to be the very pattern of fashionable
elegance. Now she looked like a demure little gray nun. Elizabeth
felt that neither of them was likely to make any impression upon Mrs.
Jarvis, and began to hope devoutly that she would not meet the lady.

There seemed little fear of it. The rooms were crowded and stifling
hot. The Raymond house had plenty of doors and windows, but good form
in Cheemaun society demanded that all light and air be excluded from a
fashionable function. So the blinds were drawn close, and Estella and
her mother stood broiling beneath the gas-lamps, for though the former
was half-suffocated with the heat, she would have entirely suffocated
with mortification had she received her guests in the vulgar light of
day.

By the time Elizabeth and her sister arrived, the sheep had been
thoroughly divided from the goats. From the drawing-room on the left
side of the spacious hall a babel and screa