the trap at a
quarter past two, for two. I'm going to shop in Hanbridge and then to
meet Mr. Stanway at Knype. We shall be in before four. Have some tea
ready. And don't forget the eclairs to-day, Bessie.' She smiled.

'No 'm. Did you think on to write about them new dog-biscuits, ma'am?'

'I'll write now,' said Leonora, and she turned to the desk.

The gong sounded; the dinner was brought in. Through the doorway between
the two rooms--there was no door, only a portiere--Leonora heard Ethel's
rather heavy footsteps. 'I don't think mother will want you to wait
to-day, Bessie,' Ethel's voice said. Then followed, after the maid's
exit, the noise of a dish-cover being lifted and dropped, and Ethel's
exclamation: 'Um!' And then the voices of Rose and Millicent
approached, in altercation.

'Come along, mother,' Ethel called out.

'Coming,' answered Leonora, putting the note in an envelope.

'The idea!' said Rose's voice scornfully.

'Yes,' retorted Milly's voice. 'The idea.'

Leonora listened as she wrote the address.

'You always were a conceited thing, Milly, and since this wonderful
opera you're positively ridiculous. I almost wish I'd gone to it now,
just to see what you _were_ like.'

'Ah well! You just didn't, and so you don't know.'

'No indeed! I'd got something better to do than watch a pack of
amateurs----' There was a pause for silent contempt.

'Well? Keep it up, keep it up.'

'Anyhow I'm perfectly certain father won't let you go.'

'I shall go.'

'And besides, _I_ want to go to London, and you may be absolutely
certain, my child, that he won't let two of us go.'

'I shall speak to him first.'

'Oh no, you won't.'

'Shan't I? You'll see.'

'No, you won't. Because it just happens that I spoke to him the night
before last. And he's making inquiries and he'll tell me to-night. So
what do you think of that?'

Leonora drew aside the portiere.

'My dear girls!' she protested benevolently, standing there.

The feud, always apt thus to leap into a perfectly Corsican fury of
bitterness, sank back at once to its ordinary level of passive mutual
repudiation. Rose and Millicent were not bereft of the finer feelings
which distinguish humanity from the beasts of the jungle; sometimes they
could be almost affectionate. There were, however, moments when to all
appearance they hated each other with a tigerish and crouching hatred
such as may be found only between two opposing feminine temperaments
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