is was dislike to the softer manners, and perhaps
jealousy of my notice, and the expression that the old lord noticed
is often the consequence of living in an uncongenial home.

Of course my monopoly of the hero soon ended, and as I had no
acquaintances there, and the young ones had been absorbed into
games, or had fraternised with some one, I betook myself to
explorations in company with Jane, who had likewise been left out.
After we had wandered along a dazzling stand of calceolarias, she
said, "Aunt Charlotte, papa says I ought to tell you something; I
mean, why Avice could not come to-day, and why she has nothing to
wear but her round hat. It is because she and Pica spent all they
had in paying for that Maude Harris at the Convalescent Home. They
had some kind of flimsy gauzy bonnets that were faded and utterly
done for after Commemoration week; and as Uncle Martyn is always
growling about ladies' luggage, they thought it would be a capital
plan to go without all the time they are down here, till another
quarter is due. Avice never thought of its not being right to go to
Church such a figure, and now she finds that papa thinks the command
to "have power on her head" really may apply to that sort of
fashion, we are going to contrive something for Sunday, but it could
not be done in time for to-day. Besides, she had no dress but a
serge."

"She preferred dressing her sister to dressing herself," I answered;
and Jane began assuring me that no one knew how unselfish that dear
old Bird is. The little money she had, she added to Pica's small
remnant, and thus enough had been provided to fit the elder sister
out.

"I suppose," I said, "that Isa manages better, for she does not seem
to be reduced to the same extremities, though I suppose she has less
allowance than her cousins."

"She has exactly the same. I know it." And Jane caught herself up,
evidently checking something I might have thought ill-natured, which
made me respond something intended to be moralising, but which was
perhaps foolish, about good habits of economy, and how this
disappointment, taken so good-humouredly, would be a lesson to
Avice. "A lesson? I should think so," said Jane bluntly. "A
lesson not to lend her money to Isa"; and then, when I asked what
she meant, she blurted out that all Isa's so-called share of the
subscription for Maude Harris had been advanced by Avice--Pica had
told her so, with comments on her sister's folly in lend