lace, now halting
before the window of his sister's sitting-room, now plucking a leaf from
one of the flowering plants in a gilded _etagere_, now teasing the white
cockatoo in its fine cage, or stirring up the spaniel with the tip of
his boot. All the teasing was good-naturedly done, and provoked no
rancour in the mind of bird or beast; but it showed an unwonted
excitement of feeling on his part, and was observed by his sister with a
slightly ironical smile.

"If you will sit still for a little while, I will tell you perhaps," she
said; "but, so long as you stray round the room in that aimless manner,
I shall keep my communications to myself."

"I beg your pardon; I did not know that I was disturbing you. Well,"
said Hubert, seating himself resolutely in a chair near her own, and
devoting his attention apparently to the dissection of a spray of
scented geranium-leaf, "tell me what is the matter, and I will listen
discreetly. I am really concerned about Enid; she is neither well nor
happy."

"Did she tell you so?"

"It is easy to be seen that she is not well," said Hubert, a very slight
smile curving his lips under the heavy dark moustache as he looked down
at the leaf which he was twisting in his hand; "and I think her
unhappiness is quite as obvious. What is it, Flossy? You ought to know.
You are the girl's chaperon, adviser, friend, or whatever you like to
call it; you stand in the place----"

He stopped abruptly. He forgot sometimes that ghastly story of his
sister's earlier life; sometimes it came back to him with hideous
distinctness. At that moment he did not like to say to Flossy, "You
stand in her mother's place." And yet it was the truth. Had it been for
Enid's good or harm, he suddenly wondered, that Florence had become the
General's wife?

"I understand what you mean," said Flossy quite sweetly, though there
was no very amiable look in her velvety-brown eyes. "I assure you that I
should be very glad to make more of a friend of Enid if she would allow
me; but she does not like me."

"Instinct!" thought Hubert involuntarily, but he did not say it aloud.
With the extraordinary quickness, however, which Florence occasionally
showed, she divined the purport of his reflection almost at once.

"You think, no doubt, that it is natural," she said; "but I do not agree
with you. Enid has no great penetration; she has never been able to read
my character--which, after all, is not so bad as you imagine."

"I d