She smiled a special smile, only given to the most favoured of her
partners. The young man thought how pretty this sisterly teasing was on
the part of the lovely Miss Symons; Henrietta saw it in another light.

"My crinolines are not larger than yours, you know they are not."

"Methinks the lady doth protest too much, don't you, Mr. Dockerell?"

"And you always take the best seat in the carriage, so it is nonsense to
say ..."

He noticed for the first time how loud her voice was.

"Please let us change the conversation," said Louie gently, "it can't be
at all interesting for Mr. Dockerell. I am ready to own anything you
like, that you don't wear crinolines at all, if that will please you."

"If there is any difficulty, could not my mother take one of you
to-morrow night?" (It was Louie he looked at.) "She is staying with me
for a week. Couldn't we call for you? It would be a great pleasure."

"Oh, thank you," began Henrietta.

"Really," said Louie, "you make me quite ashamed of my poor little joke.
I don't think we have come quite to such a state of things that two
sisters can't sit in the same carriage. I hear you are a most alarmingly
good archer, Mr. Dockerell, and I want to ask you to advise me about my
bow, if you will be so kind." To be asked advice, of course, completed
the conquest.

Mr. Dockerell had not been so much in love with Etta as with marrying.
It took him a very short time to change, but when he had made his offer
and Louie had discovered that he was too dull a young man for her, he
did not transfer his affections back to Henrietta. She would gladly have
taken him if he had. He left the neighbourhood, and not long after
married someone else.

In this grievous trouble Henrietta did not know where to turn for
comfort. Mrs. Symons was one of those women who are much more a wife
than a mother. She could enter into all Mr. Symons' feelings quite
remarkably, even his most out-of-the-way masculine feelings, but her
daughters, who on the whole were very ordinary young women, she did not
understand. Perhaps Henrietta was not altogether ordinary, but after all
it is not exceptional to want to be loved. Nor did Mrs. Symons care
particularly for her daughters; she liked her sons much better, she
would perhaps have been happier without daughters; and she liked
Henrietta the least, connecting her still with those disagreeable
childish interviews when Henrietta had been brought down, black and
sulky, to