n't drag any more from me!
Don't be afraid, Ella, I won't spoil sport!'

'There is no sport to spoil,' said Ella. 'Mother, it is only that--that
George has furnished the house while I have been away.'

'Really?' said Mrs. Hylton politely; 'that _is_ energetic of him,
indeed!'

'Poor dear Tumps came home so proud of your approval,' said Jessie to
Ella, 'and we were awfully relieved to find you didn't think we'd made
the house quite too dreadful--weren't we, Carrie?'

'Yes, indeed, Jessie.'

'Of course,' observed the latter young lady, 'it's always so hard to hit
upon another person's taste exactly--especially in furnishing.'

'Impossible, I should have thought,' from Mrs. Hylton.

'I hope Ella is of a different opinion--what do _you_ say, dearest?'

'Oh,' cried Ella hastily, with splendid mendacity, 'I--I liked it all
very much, and--and it was so much too kind of you and Carrie. I've
never thanked you for--for all the things you gave me!'

'Oh, _those_! they ain't worth thanking for--just a few little artistic
odds and ends. They set off a room, you know--give it a finish.'

'Young people nowadays,' croaked old Mrs. Chapman lugubriously in Mrs.
Hylton's courteously inclined ear, 'think so much of luxury and
ornament. I'm sure when I married my dear husband, we----'

'Now, mater dear, you really _mustn't_!' interrupted the irrepressible
Jessie; 'Mrs. Hylton is on _our_ side, you know. She likes pretty things
about her--don't you, Mrs. Hylton? And, talking of that, Ella, I hope
you thought our glyco-vitrine decoration a success? We were perfectly
surprised ourselves to see how well it came out! Just transparent
coloured paper, Mrs. Hylton, and you cut it into sheets, and gum it on
the window-panes, and really, unless you were told or came quite close,
you would declare it was real stained glass! You ought to try some of it
on your windows, Mrs. Hylton. I'll tell you where you can get it--you go
down----'

'I'm afraid I'm old-fashioned, my dear,' said Mrs. Hylton, stiffly; 'if
I cannot have the reality, I prefer to do without even the best
imitations.'

'Why, you're deserting us, I declare! Ella, you must take her to see the
window, and then perhaps she will change her opinion.'

'I always tell my girls,' said Mrs. Chapman, in her woolly voice, 'when
I am dead and gone they can make any alterations they please, but while
I am spared to them I like everything about the house to be kept exactly
as it was in