he table, deeply
interested in the parcels, looked critically at the picture of the
bright-eyed lady with the soft coils of fair hair.

"She's not like you, Diana."

"No. A thousand times better looking than I am!"

"I suppose you're like your father?"

"Yes, so people say, though I can't see it myself."

"How pretty she is--and how young! She might almost be your sister. And
yet I suppose she must be middle-aged."

"What do you mean by 'middle-aged'?" demanded Diana sharply.

"Why, anything over thirty! I call _my_ mother middle-aged."

"Do you?"

"Of course!" (Meg was still examining the photo.) "What a perfectly
glorious dress to be taken in! And I adore her necklace. She's like the
pictures one sees in _The Queen_. It must be lovely to have a pretty
mother."

Diana was looking at Meg with an unfathomable expression in her grey
eyes.

"Don't you call your mother pretty, then?" she asked.

"Oh, yes! she's a darling; but she's had her day. She's not a society
beauty, is she?"

"N-n-n-o, I suppose not," said Diana thoughtfully.

The boys came into the room just then; the conversation was interrupted,
and Meg probably forgot all about it. Diana, however, did not. At
lunch-time she critically studied her hostess's features, and mentally
compared them with those of the photo which had arrived that morning
from Paris.

"I don't believe Mrs. Fleming is really any older than Mother," she
decided. "She's been very pretty some time, but she's let herself go.
It's a pity. All the same, I could shake Meg!"

An impression that had been gathering in Diana's mind ever since she
arrived at the Vicarage now shaped itself into definite form. She did
not like the attitude of her friends towards their mother. They were
devoted to her, but their love lacked all element of admiration. Mrs.
Fleming had made the common mistake of effacing herself utterly for the
sake of her children. She had dropped her former accomplishments, even
the music in which she had once excelled, and made herself an absolute
slave to her household. So long as Meg and Elsie wore pretty frocks she
cared nothing for her own dress; she never bought a new book or took a
holiday; her interests were centred in the young people's achievements,
and she had become merely the theatre of their actions. Going away
seldom, and reading little, had narrowed her horizon. She often felt her
ideas were out of date, and that she was not keeping up with the modern