We are going home some day, when Jack has made
his fortune, and until then my brother-in-law rents the Castle from us,
and we go over and stay with him once or twice in the year. Esmeralda
is mistress of Knock, and is having it put in such terrible order that
we can hardly recognise the dear old tumbledown place. There is not a
single broken pane in the glass-houses!" Bridgie spoke in a tone of
almost incredulous admiration, the while she drew a large promenade
photograph from its envelope. "There, that's Esmeralda! Taken in the
dress in which she was presented."

Sylvia looked, and gasped with surprise. Such a vision of beauty and
elegance, such billows of satin, such lace, such jewels and nodding
plumes, were seldom seen in this modest suburban neighbourhood. She had
never before had any connection with a girl who had been presented at
Court, and the face which looked out of the photograph was as young as
her own--startlingly, dazzlingly young.

"Your sister? Really! How per-fectly lovely and beautiful! Is she
really as pretty as that? How old is she? What is her husband like?
Is she very happy? She must be very rich to have all those beautiful
things."

"She has more money than she can spend. Can you imagine that? I
can't!" said Bridgie solemnly. "I asked Esmeralda what it felt like to
be able to get whatever she liked without asking the price, and she said
it was very soothing to the feelings, but not nearly so exciting as when
she used to make up new hats out of nothing at all and a piece of dyed
ribbon. She is only twenty--younger than I, and as beautiful as a
picture. Geoffrey adores her. She has a dear little baby boy to play
with, and wherever she goes people turn round to look after her, so that
she walks about from morning till night in a kind of triumphal
procession."

"How nice!" sighed Sylvia enviously. "Just what I should like. No one
turns round to look after me, and I feel a worm every time I walk down
Bond Street among all the horrible creatures who look nicer than I do
myself. People say--sensible old people, I mean--that it is bad for the
character to have everything that one wants. Do you think it is so in
your sister's case? Is she spoiled by prosperity?"

Esmeralda's sister hesitated, loyally unwilling to breathe a word
against a member of her family.

"She is just as loving and generous as she can be; thinks of every
single thing that father would have liked, and ma