behind.'

'And a band along the forehead?'

'Gems, if they meet your favour.'

'But my cheek-bones, Louisa?'

'They are not too prominent, Carry.'

'Curls relieve them.'

'The change will relieve the curls, dear one.'

Caroline looked in the glass, at the Countess, as polished a reflector,
and fell into a chair. Her hair was accustomed to roll across her
shoulders in heavy curls. The Duke would find a change of the sort
singular. She should not at all know herself with her hair done
differently: and for a lovely woman to be transformed to a fright is
hard to bear in solitude, or in imagination.

'Really!' she petitioned.

'Really--yes, or no?' added the Countess.

'So unaccountable a whim!' Caroline looked in the glass dolefully,
and pulled up her thick locks from one cheek, letting them fall on the
instant.

'She will?' breathed the Countess.

'I really cannot,' said Caroline, with vehemence.

The Countess burst into laughter, replying: 'My poor child! it is not my
whim--it is your obligation. George Uplift dines here to-day. Now do you
divine it? Disguise is imperative for you.'

Mrs. Strike, gazing in her sister's face, answered slowly, 'George? But
how will you meet him?' she hurriedly asked.

'I have met him,' rejoined the Countess, boldly. 'I defy him to know me.
I brazen him! You with your hair in my style are equally safe. You see
there is no choice. Pooh! contemptible puppy!'

'But I never,'--Caroline was going to say she never could face him. 'I
will not dine. I will nurse Evan.'

'You have faced him, my dear,' said the Countess, 'and you are to change
your head-dress simply to throw him off his scent.'

As she spoke the Countess tripped about, nodding her head like a girl.
Triumph in the sense of her power over all she came in contact with,
rather elated the lady.

Do you see why she worked her sister in this roundabout fashion? She
would not tell her George Uplift was in the house till she was sure he
intended to stay, for fear of frightening her. When the necessity became
apparent, she put it under the pretext of a whim in order to see how far
Caroline, whose weak compliance she could count on, and whose reticence
concerning the Duke annoyed her, would submit to it to please her
sister; and if she rebelled positively, why to be sure it was the Duke
she dreaded to shock: and, therefore, the Duke had a peculiar hold on
her: and, therefore, the Countess might reckon that she would do