ity.'

'Don't be supercilious or sarcastic, Nina, but help me with your own good
sense and wise advice. She has not come over in the best of humours. She
has, or fancies she has, some difference to settle with papa. They seldom
meet without a quarrel, and I fear this occasion is to be no exception; so
do aid me to get things over pleasantly, if it be possible.'

'She snubbed me the only time I met her. I tried to help her off with her
bonnet, and, unfortunately, I displaced, if I did not actually remove, her
wig, and she muttered something "about a rope-dancer not being a dexterous
lady's-maid."'

'O Nina, surely you do not mean--'

'Not that I was exactly a rope-dancer, Kate, but I had on a Greek jacket
that morning of blue velvet and gold, and a white skirt, and perhaps these
had some memories of the circus for the old lady.'

'You are only jesting now, Nina.'

'Don't you know me well enough to know that I never jest when I think, or
even suspect, I am injured?'

'Injured!'

'It's not the word I wanted, but it will do; I used it in its French
sense.'

'You bear no malice, I'm sure?' said the other caressingly.

'No!' replied she, with a shrug that seemed to deprecate even having a
thought about her.

'She will stay for dinner, and we must, as far as possible, receive her in
the way she has been used to here, a very homely dinner, served as she
has always seen it--no fruit or flowers on the table, no claret-cup, no
finger-glasses.'

'I hope no tablecloth; couldn't we have a tray on a corner table, and every
one help himself as he strolled about the room?'

'Dear Nina, be reasonable just for this once.'

'I'll come down just as I am, or, better still, I'll take down my hair and
cram it into a net; I'd oblige her with dirty hands, if I only knew how to
do it.'

'I see you only say these things in jest; you really do mean to help me
through this difficulty.'

'But why a difficulty? what reason can you offer for all this absurd
submission to the whims of a very tiresome old woman? Is she very rich, and
do you expect an heritage?'

'No, no; nothing of the kind.'

'Does she load you with valuable presents? Is she ever ready to commemorate
birthdays and family festivals?'

'No.'

'Has she any especial quality or gift beyond riding double and a bad
temper? Oh, I was forgetting; she is the aunt of her nephew, isn't
she?--the dashing lancer that was to spend his summer over here?'

'You were indeed f