y misapplied. We all know that Mrs.
Harold's complexion has always the purest, the most natural, the most
salubrious tint; it is the whiteness of Diana."

"Pray give those--those green things to Looth," Aunt Katrina went on,
languidly; "I hope they are not poison-ivy?" (Aunt Katrina lived under
the impression that everything that came from the woods was poison-ivy.)
"And do go to my room, dear child, and sit down there a while before the
fire--there's a little fire--and let Looth change your shoes, and make
you a nice cup of tea. Later--_later_," Aunt Katrina went on, more
animatedly, "we'll have some whist." She spoke as though she were
holding out something which Margaret would be sure to enjoy.

There were very few evenings now when Aunt Katrina did not expect her
niece to make one at the whist-table drawn up at her couch's side, the
other players being Dr. Kirby, Betty, or occasionally Madam Ruiz or
Madam Giron. The game had come to be her greatest pleasure, she had
therefore established and set going in her circle of friends the idea
that it was an especial pleasure to Margaret also; Aunt Katrina was an
adept in such tyrannies.

"How is Mr. Moore to-day?" Margaret inquired, not replying to the change
of shoes.

"He improves every hour, it's wonderful! He is getting well in half the
time that any one else would have taken. He will walk as lightly as ever
before long--or almost as lightly. He is rather uncomfortably
comfortable just now, however," the Doctor went on, laughing, "he
doesn't know how to adapt himself to all his new luxuries; he took up an
ivory-handled brush this morning almost as though it were an infernal
machine."

"I should hardly think Mrs. Moore would approve of _useless_ luxuries,"
said Aunt Katrina, not with a sniff--Aunt Katrina never sniffed--but
with a slight movement of the tip of her very well shaped nose; she
followed the movement with a light stroke upon that tip with her
embroidered handkerchief.

"Penelope nowadays approves of everything for her Middleton," said Dr.
Kirby, laughing again. "I believe she'll deck him out with pink silk
curtains round his bed before she gets through."

"Yes--but ivory-handled _brushes_," said Aunt Katrina, confining
herself, as usual, to the facts. "And his hair is so thin, too!"

"I must confess I roared--if you will permit the rather free expression.
But the brushes came with the other things that nephew of yours sent
down; I believe he's tryin