Some one had once told her
that her profile was classic, and she still rejoiced in believing it,
was always photographed from a side view, and wore in the house loose
and flowing garments of strange tints, calculated to bring out the
colour of her glowing tresses. Cecilia, who worshipped colour with every
bit of her artist soul, adored her stepmother's hair as thoroughly as
she detested her dresses. Bob, who was blunt and inartistic, merely
detested her from every point of view. "Don't see what you find to rave
about in it," he said. "All the warmth of her disposition has simply
gone to her head."

There was certainly little warmth in Mrs. Rainham's heart, where her
stepdaughter was concerned. She disapproved very thoroughly of Cecilia
in every detail--of her pretty face and delicate colouring, of the fair
hair that rippled and curled and gleamed in a manner so light-hearted as
to seem distinctly out of place in the dingy room, of the slender grace
that was in vivid contrast to her own stoutness. She resented the very
way Cecilia put on her clothes--simple clothes, but worn with an air
that made her own elaborate dresses cheap and common by comparison. It
was so easy for her to look well turned out; and it would never be easy
to dress Avice, who bade fair to resemble her mother in build, and had
already a passion for frills and trimmings, and a contempt for plain
things. Mrs. Rainham had an uneasy conviction that the girl who bore all
her scathing comments in silence actually dared to criticize her in
her own mind--perhaps openly to Bob, whose blue eyes held many unspoken
things as he looked at her. Once she had overheard him say to Cecilia:
"She looks like an over-ornamented pie!" Cecilia had laughed, and Mrs.
Rainham had passed on, unsuspected, her mind full of a wild surmise.
They would never dare to mean her--and yet--that new dress of hers was
plastered with queer little bits of purposeless trimmings. She never
again wore it without that terrible sentence creeping into her mind.
And she had been so pleased with it, too! An over-ornamented pie. If she
could only have been sure they meant her!

She thought of it again as she sat looking at Cecilia. The new dress was
lying on her bed, ready to be worn that afternoon; and Cecilia was going
to meet Bob--Bob, who had uttered the horrible remark. Well, at least
there should be no haste about the meeting. It would do Bob no harm to
cool his heels for a little. She set he