ust therefore leave her to her own resources. Perhaps she would
like to do a little shopping on her own account, take a drive, or visit
a gallery! Cornelia, with a sudden rising of spirits, guessed she could
find a dozen things to do, and bade her friends feel no anxiety on her
score. She wrote no letters that morning, but sallied forth on the
inevitable shopping excursion, with a particularly gay and jaunty air,
and an inclination to bubble into laughter on the slightest provocation,
at which Mrs Moffatt exclaimed in envy--

"My, what spirits you do enjoy! I wish I could laugh like that. Some
people have all the luck!" She sighed as she spoke, and Cornelia,
glancing at her, caught a haggard look beneath the white veil. It
occurred to her for the first time that her hostess was no longer young.
She wondered how she would look at night, denuded of powder and rouge,
and luxuriant golden locks? An elderly woman, thin and worn, with the
crow's feet deepening round her eyes. A woman whose life was spent in
the pursuit of personal gain, and who reaped in return the inevitable
harvest of weariness and satiety. Cornelia was too happy to judge her
harshly. She was sorry for her and made a point of being unusually
amiable during the long hours of trailing about from shop to shop, which
were beginning to be a severe tax on her patience. Mrs Moffatt never
seemed to make a purchase outright, but preferred to pay half a dozen
visits to a shop, trying on garment or ornament, as the case might be,
haggling over the price, and throwing small sops to the vendor, in the
shape of the purchase of insignificant trifles.

Cornelia herself was tempted to buy a number of articles which she
neither needed nor knew exactly how to use, partly from want of
something to do while her companion was occupied, and partly from a
sense of shame, at giving so much trouble for nothing. Every day, also,
boxes of fineries were sent "on approval," to the hotel, so that one
seemed to live in a constant atmosphere of milliner's shop. Cornelia
wondered to what purpose was this everlasting dressing up. The dejected
Silas could hardly count as an audience, since he was the most
indifferent of husbands, and it seemed a poor reward for so much trouble
to receive the passing glances of strangers.

"I hope when I settle down, I'll have some real interest in life. I'll
take care that I have, too! I'd go crazed if there was nothing more to
it than hang