"I don't expect we'd see much of your society. Our object now is to better ourselves. You see, father is enormously rich, and he wants us to do great things. He wants us to be raised in the social scale. He told me only this morning that he was most anxious to cultivate your step-sister, Miss Aldworth, and I'll tell you why, Miss Aldworth is such a very great friend of Miss Angela St Just." "Now," said Ethel, "I'd like to ask you a question. What do you see in that girl?" "What do we see in her?" exclaimed Clara, who thought it time to take her turn in the conversation, "why, just everything." "Well, I'd like you to explain." "Hasn't she got the most beautiful face, the most wonderful manners? She is so graceful, so gracious, and then she has such good style. There is nothing in all the world that we wouldn't any of us do for Miss St Just." "And yet you have never spoken to her?" "Father means that we shall, and he wants you to help us." Molly was silent. She felt intensely cross and discontented. "I don't know her myself," said Molly. "But your precious Marcia does, and we are greatly hoping to get an introduction through her." That night as the three girls retired to bed, in the large and luxurious room set aside for their use at Court Prospect, they could not help expressing some very bitter remarks. "We'll never have a chance against Marcia," said Molly. "She just gets everything. She has got our mother's love--Horace thinks the world of her; father is devoted to her, and now even our own darling friend, our dear Carters, say plainly that they want to know her because she can get them an introduction to that tiresome Angela St Just. I haven't patience with them." "It strikes me," said Ethel, "that they're not specially sorry to see the last of us. How do you feel about it, Molly?" "I'm not going to say," said Molly. She went to the window and flung it open. The prospect was delightful. Overhead the stars were shining with unwonted brilliancy; there was no touch or smell of town in this rural retreat. Oh, how sweet it was--how delightful to have such a home! But to-morrow they must give it up; the picnics, the laughter, the fun, the gay friends always coming in and going out. They must go back to the little grubby house, to the tiresome monotony of everyday life--to Susan, impertinent Susan; to Fanny, who had dared to speak to Nesta as she had done on that awful night; to the room where they had lived through such tortures and--to their mother.