been laughing with her cousins at the other end of the room, was around upon her elders in a flash.

“I heard what Mr. Sillerton said! Yes, I did, Mamma: he says I do my hair stylishly. Didn’t I always tell you so? I know it’s more becoming to let it curl as it wants to than to plaster it down with bandoline like Aunty’s—”

“Tina, Tina—you always think people are admiring you!” Miss Lovell protested.

“Why shouldn’t I, when they do?” the girl laughingly challenged; and, turning her mocking eyes on Sillerton Jackson:{91} “Do tell Aunt Charlotte not to be so dreadfully old-maidish!”

{91}

Delia saw the blood rise to Charlotte Lovell’s face. It no longer painted two brick-rose circles on her thin cheek-bones, but diffused a harsh flush over her whole countenance, from the collar fastened with an old-fashioned garnet brooch to the pepper-and-salt hair (with no trace of red left in it) flattened down over her hollow temples.

That evening, when they went up to bed, Delia called Tina into her room.

“You ought not to speak to your Aunt Charlotte as you did this evening, dear. It’s disrespectful—you must see that it hurts her.”

The girl overflowed with compunction. “Oh, I’m so sorry! Because I said she was an old maid? But she is, isn’t she, Mamma? In her inmost soul, I mean. I don’t be{92}lieve she’s ever been young—ever thought of fun or admiration or falling in love—do you? That’s why she never understands me, and you always do, you darling dear Mamma.” With one of her light movements, Tina was in the widow’s arms.

{92}

“Child, child,” Delia softly scolded, kissing the dark curls planted in five points on the girl’s forehead.

There was a soft foot-fall in the passage, and Charlotte Lovell stood in the door. Delia, without moving, sent her a glance of welcome over Tina’s shoulder.

“Come in, Charlotte. I’m scolding Tina for behaving like a spoilt baby before Sillerton Jackson. What will he think of her?”

“Just what she deserves, probably,” Charlotte returned with a cold smile. Tina went toward her, and her thin lips touched the girl’s proffered forehead just where{93} Delia’s warm kiss had rested. “Goodnight, child,” she said in her dry tone of 

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