‘What do you see the matter with her?’ inquired Clara, answering the question by another, as was her way when she did not want to commit herself to an expression of opinion.

’Why, she is a different girl.  Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed it.  She carries that Len to outrageous lengths, and if you don’t call her behaviour at Aunt Margaret’s last night the most prominent flirtation, I don’t know what it is.’

’Just put it to Gladys, Mina.  If she ever heard the word flirtation, I am positive she doesn’t know what it means.’

’Oh, fiddle-de-dee!—­every woman, unless she is a fool, knows intuitively what flirtation means, and can put it in practice.  But it struck me last night that Aunt Margaret rather encouraged George to pay attention to Gladys.  Of course it was quite marked.’

‘Why should she encourage it?’ asked Clara, with a slight inflection of huskiness in her voice.

’Clara, really you are too obtuse, or pretend to be.  Of course it would be a fine thing for them.  She belongs to an old Ayrshire family, and poor Aunt Margaret adores lineage.  If she could with any effrontery assume it herself, she would; but, alas! everybody knows where the Fordyces came from.  They’ll angle for our dear little ward this summer, and bait the hook with gold.’

‘Really, you are vulgar, Mina,’ said Clara a trifle coldly, and, bending over an open trunk, busied herself with some of the trifles in the tray.  ’We are sure to forget a thousand things.  Do you think everything is here which ought to go?’ she said, deliberately changing the subject.

’Oh, I don’t know.  We shall be glad of any excuse to come up in a week.  If it is fearfully slow I’m coming back to keep Leonard company.  Well, I suppose we must make haste.  The cabs will be here directly.’

‘Not till after breakfast, surely.  There is the gong.  Are you ready?’

’Yes; just put in this stud for me, like a dear.  How elegant you look, just as if you had stepped from a bandbox.  How do you manage to be so tidy, and yet always so graceful?  When I am tidy I am stiff as a poker.’

Clara laughed, and, having fastened the refractory collar-button, bent her stately head, and gave her sister a kiss.

‘Don’t attempt to be too tidy, it will spoil your individuality.’

  ’"They were two sisters of one race,
    She was the fairest in the face,"’

sang Mina, as she bounded down-stairs—­not disdaining, in spite of her eighteen years, to slide down the last few feet of the banisters; only she took care to see that nobody but Clara was in sight.

It was a very happy breakfast-table, though Leonard, whose classes kept him in town, affected a melancholy mood.

’I have only one piece of advice to give you, Gladys, in addition to my parting blessing,’ he said teasingly.  ‘How much will you give for it?’

‘How much is it worth?’ she flashed back in a moment, her eyes dancing with fun.