stairs to Katharine's room, where, invisible themselves,
they had the better chance of feasting upon the privacy of the room's
adorable and mysterious mistress. Cassandra adored her cousin; the
adoration might have been foolish, but was saved from that excess
and lent an engaging charm by the volatile nature of Cassandra's
temperament. She had adored a great many things and people in the
course of twenty-two years; she had been alternately the pride and the
desperation of her teachers. She had worshipped architecture and music,
natural history and humanity, literature and art, but always at the
height of her enthusiasm, which was accompanied by a brilliant degree
of accomplishment, she changed her mind and bought, surreptitiously,
another grammar. The terrible results which governesses had predicted
from such mental dissipation were certainly apparent now that Cassandra
was twenty-two, and had never passed an examination, and daily
showed herself less and less capable of passing one. The more serious
prediction that she could never possibly earn her living was also
verified. But from all these short strands of different accomplishments
Cassandra wove for herself an attitude, a cast of mind, which, if
useless, was found by some people to have the not despicable virtues
of vivacity and freshness. Katharine, for example, thought her a most
charming companion. The cousins seemed to assemble between them a great
range of qualities which are never found united in one person and
seldom in half a dozen people. Where Katharine was simple, Cassandra was
complex; where Katharine was solid and direct, Cassandra was vague and
evasive. In short, they represented very well the manly and the womanly
sides of the feminine nature, and, for foundation, there was the
profound unity of common blood between them. If Cassandra adored
Katharine she was incapable of adoring any one without refreshing her
spirit with frequent draughts of raillery and criticism, and Katharine
enjoyed her laughter at least as much as her respect.

Respect was certainly uppermost in Cassandra's mind at the present
moment. Katharine's engagement had appealed to her imagination as the
first engagement in a circle of contemporaries is apt to appeal to the
imaginations of the others; it was solemn, beautiful, and mysterious;
it gave both parties the important air of those who have been initiated
into some rite which is still concealed from the rest of the group.
For Ka