own hair flying back from her face, also stepped out into the
garden.

'Agnes!' cried the new-comer, who had the strenuous and dishevelled air
natural to one just emerged from a long violin practice. 'Has Catherine
come back yet?'

'Not that I know of. Do come here and look at pussy; did you ever see
anything so comfortable?'

'You and she look about equally lazy. What have you been doing all the
afternoon?'

'We look what we are, my dear. Doing? Why, I have been attending to
my domestic duties, arranging the flowers, mending my pink dress for
to-morrow night, and helping to keep mamma in good spirits; she is
depressed because she has been finding Elizabeth out in some waste or
other, and I have been preaching to her to make Elizabeth uncomfortable
if she likes, but not to worrit herself. And after all, pussy and I have
come out for a rest. We've earned it, haven't we, Chattie? And as for
you, Miss Artistic, I should like to know what you've been doing for the
good of your kind since dinner. I suppose you had tea at the vicarage?'

The speaker lifted inquiring eyes to her sister as she spoke, her cheek
plunged in the warm fur of a splendid Persian cat, her whole look
and voice expressing the very highest degree of quiet, comfort, and
self-possession. Agnes Leyburn was not pretty; the lower part of the
face was a little heavy in outline and moulding; the teeth were not as
they should have been, and the nose was unsatisfactory. But the eyes
under their long lashes were shrewdness itself, and there was an
individuality in the voice, a cheery even-temperediness in look and
tone, which had a pleasing effect on the bystander. Her dress was neat
and dainty; every detail of it bespoke a young woman who respected both
herself and the fashion.

Her sister, on the other hand, was guiltless of the smallest trace of
fashion. Her skirts were cut with the most engaging naivete, she was
much adorned with amber beads, and her red brown hair had been tortured
and frizzled to look as much like an aureole as possible. But, on the
other hand, she was a beauty, though at present you felt her a beauty in
disguise, a stage Cinderella as it were, in very becoming rags, waiting
for the fairy godmother.

'Yes, I had tea at the vicarage,' said this young person, throwing
herself on the grass in spite of a murmured protest from Agnes, who had
an inherent dislike of anything physically rash, 'and I had the greatest
difficulty to get away. M