Joanna.

"All nonsense, my dear; I always do what is pleasantest, and it agrees with me perfectly. In winter, I do toast my toes; and you know I eat half-a-dozen peaches and plums at a time like a South Sea Islander, only I believe they feast on cocoa-nut and breadfruit; don't they, Conny? You are the scholar; you know you have your geography at your finger-ends yet."

"Oh, don't tease me, Polly!" protested Conny impatiently.

"Dear Jack, hand me a sprig of broom to stick in Conny's ear," persisted Polly in a loud whisper.

Constantia shook her head furiously, as if she were already horribly tickled, and that at the climax of her plot.

"Never mind, Conny, I'll protect you. What a shame, Polly, to spoil her pleasure!" cried Joanna indignantly.

"I beg your pardon, Donna Quixotina."

"I wonder you girls can waste your time in this foolish manner," lectured Lilias, with an air of superiority; "you are none of you better than another, always pursuing amusement."

"What a story, Lilias!" put in Polly undauntedly; "you know I sew yard upon yard of muslin-work, and embroider ells of French merino, and task myself to get done within a given time. Aunt Powis says I make myself a slave."

"Because you like it," declared Lilias disdainfully; "you happen to be a clever sewer, and you are fond of having your fingers busy and astonishing everybody—besides, you admire embroidery in muslin and cloth; and even your pocket-money—what with gowns and bonnets, tickets to oratorios and concerts, and promenades, and 'the kid shoes and perfumery,' which are papa's old-fashioned summing up of our expenses, bouquets and fresh gloves would be nearer the truth—won't always meet the claims upon your gold and silver showers; and Susan," added Lilias, not to be cheated out of her diatribe, and starting with new alacrity, "practising attitudes and looking at her hands; and Conny reading her trashy romances."

"It is not a romance, Lilias," complained Conny piteously; "it is a tale of real life."

"It is all the same," maintained the inexorable Lilias; "one of the most aggravating novels I ever read was a simple story."

"Oh, Lilias, do lend it to me!" begged Polly; "I'm not literary, but it is delightful to be intensely interested until the very hair rises on the crown of one's head."

"I don't know that you would like it," put in Joanna; "it is not one of the modern novels, and it has only one dismal catastrophe; it is the fine old novel by Mrs. Inchbald."

"Then I don't want it; I don't care for old things, since I have not a palate for old wines or an eye for old pictures. I hate the musty, buckram ghosts of our fathers."

"Oh! but Mrs. Inchbald never raised ghosts, Polly; she manœuvred stately, passionate men and women of her own day."

"The wiser woman she. But they would be ghosts to me, Jack, unless they were in the costume of the present day; there is not an inch of me given to history."

"And you, Joanna," concluded Lilias, quite determined to breast every interruption and finish her peroration, "you have listened, and smiled, and frowned, and dreamt for an hour."

"I was waiting in case papa should want me," apologized Joanna, rather humbly.

"That need not have hindered you from hemming round the skirt of this frock."

"Oh, Lilias! I am sorry for you, girl," cried Polly. "You're in a diseased frame of mind; you are in a fidget of work; you don't know the enjoyment of idleness, the luxury of laziness. You'll spoil your complexion; your hair will grow grey; no man will dare to trifle with such a notable woman!"

"I don't care!" exclaimed Lilias bluntly and magnanimously. "I don't want to be trifled with; I don't value men's admiration."

"Now! Now!! Now!!! Now!!!!" protested Polly; "I don't value men's admiration either, of course, but I like partners, and I would not be fond of being branded as a strong-minded female, a would-be Lady Bountiful, a woman going a-tracking; that's what men say of girls who don't care to be trifled with. But, Lilias, are you quite sure you don't believe in any of the good old stories—the 'goody' stories I would call them if I were a man—of the amiable girl who went abroad in the old pelisse, and who was wedded to the enthusiastic baronet? My dears, you must have observed they were abominably untrue; the baronet, weak and false, always, since the world began, marries the saucy, spendthrift girl, who is prodigal in rich stuffs, and bright colours, and becoming fits, and neat boots and shoes—who thinks him worth listening to, and laughing with, and thinking about—the fool."

"Really, Polly, you are too bad," cried both Susan and Lilias at once; their stock-in-trade exhausted, and not knowing very well what they meant, or what they should suggest further if this sentence were not answer enough.

"Now, I believe Joanna does not credit the goody stories, or does not care for them, rather; but we are not all heroines, we cannot all afford an equal indifference."

Joanna coloured until the red stain became undistinguishable, and even Polly felt conscious that her allusion was too flippant for the cause.

"So you see, Lilias," she continued quickly, "I'm not the least ashamed of having been caught fast asleep in my room before dinner the other rainy day. I always curl myself up and go to sleep when I've got nothing better to do, and I count the capacity a precious gift; besides, I will let you into a secret worth your heads: it improves your looks immensely after you've been gadding about for a number of days, and horribly dissipated in dancing of nights at Christmas, or in the oratorio week, or if you are in a town when the circuit is sitting—not present as a prisoner, Conny."

"Polly!" blazed out Constantia, who, on the plea of the needle-like sharpness and single-heartedness which sometimes distinguishes her fifteen years, was permitted to be more plain-spoken and ruder than her sisters; "I hate to hear you telling of doing everything you like with such enjoyment. I think, if you had been a man, you would have been an abominable fellow, and you are only harmless because you are a girl."

Polly laughed immoderately. "Such a queer compliment, Conny!"

"Hold your tongue, Conny."

"Go back to your book; we'll tell mamma," scolded the elder girls; and Conny hung her head, scarlet with shame and consternation.

Conny had truth on her side; yet Polly's independence and animal delight in life, in this artificial world, was not to be altogether despised either.

Polly maintained honestly that the girl had done no harm. She was glad she had never had to endure senior sisters, and if she had been afflicted with younger plagues, she would have made a point of not snubbing them, on the principle of fair play.

"And you were a little heathenish, Polly," suggested Joanna, "not giving fair play to the heroism of the ancients."

But Susan had long been waiting her turn, testifying more interest in her right to speak than she usually wasted on the affairs of the state. She wished to cross-examine Polly on a single important expression, and although Susan at least was wonderfully harmless, her patience could hold out no longer.

"Why are you afraid of being blowsy to-night, Polly?"

"I'm not frightened, I would not disturb myself about a risk; but you've kept an invitation all this time under my tongue, not in my pockets, I assure you;" and Polly elaborately emptied them, the foppish breast pocket, and that at the waist.

"It is only from Mrs. Maxwell," sighed Susan; "we are never invited anywhere except to Hurlton, in this easy way."

"But there is company; young Mr. Jardine has come home to Whitethorn,