t?"

"Look at me. Are you attending?"

"Yes, I suppose so. Mother, Freda says she will give me a Persian
kitten; the Persian cat has two, such beauties, snow-white. May I have
one, mother?"

"Attend to me, and stop talking. You think a great deal of me, your
mother, and you call me perfect. Now show that you put me in high
esteem."

"That sounds very nice," thought Sibyl to herself. "Mother is just in
her most beautiful humor. Of course I'll listen."

"I wish," continued the mother, and she turned slightly away from the
child as she spoke, "I wish you to stop all that nonsense about your
father and me. I wish you to understand that we are not perfect,
either of us; we are just everyday, ordinary sort of people. As we
happen to be your father and mother, you must obey us and do what we
wish; but you make yourself, and us also, ridiculous when you talk as
you do. I am perfectly sick of your poses, Sibyl."

"Poses!" cried Sibyl; "what's poses?"

"Oh, you are too tiresome; ask nurse to explain, or Miss Winstead,
when you go home. Miss Winstead, if she is wise, will tell you that
you must just turn round and go the other way. You must obey me, of
course, and understand that I know the right way to train you; but you
are not to talk of me as though I were an angel. I am nothing of the
kind. I am an ordinary woman, with ordinary feelings and ordinary
faults, and I wish you to be an ordinary little girl. I am very angry
with you for your great rudeness to Lord Grayleigh. What did it mean?"

"Oh, mother! it meant----" Sibyl swallowed something in her throat.
Her mother's speech was unintelligible; it hurt her, she did not
exactly know why, but this last remark was an opening.

"Mother, I am glad you spoke of it. I could not, really and truly,
help it."

"Don't talk nonsense. Now go away. Hortense is coming to dress me for
dinner. Go."

"But, mother! one minute first, please--please."

"Go, Sibyl, obey me."

"It was 'cos Lord Grayleigh spoke against my----"

"Go, Sibyl, I won't listen to another word. I shall punish you
severely if you do not obey me this instant."

"I am going," said the child, "but I cannot be----"

"Go. You are coming down to dessert to-night, and you are to speak
properly to Lord Grayleigh. Those are my orders. Now go."

Hortense came in at that moment. She entered with that slight whirl
which she generally affected, and which she considered truly Parisian.
Somehow, in some fashion, Sib