myself upon them--shall take complete charge of--what? my mother? Never mind my mother! Times are changed, and really it's more than a trifle presumptuous for any Lawton to attempt to teach a Bassett how to--' and the voice became inaudible, because mamma had entered her sleeping-room and closed the door. But next day we took our drive with her, instead of the nurse or maid, and in our big feathered hats--I in pink and Dorrie in blue--we sat one on each side of her and swung our slim, black-silk legs against her skirts and wished papa was there. And that very day she cut Mr. Bulkley dead as he saluted her in passing, and said, under her breath, 'Horrid wretch!' Horrid wretch then! And now? She can't be too cordial to him, actually pressing him to come again. Has she no eyes? Can't she see how he stares poor Dorrie out of countenance, and how--how--" Suddenly the girl started. "Why," she said, "it can't be! Oh, it can't be that she _does_ see and understand and--and--still welcomes him--that she is tormenting my little sister about _him_?" A certain ominous tremble of the ceiling told of the energetic Lena's presence in the room above. Sybil flew up the stairs, went first to her trunk, and a moment later came to Lena, holding in her hand a spray of artificial flowers, and saying: "If you will bring me your hat I'll freshen it up with these velvet roses. I can do it right here while you are finishing mamma's room." With a cry of rapture the little, square-rigged German girl dropped the pillow she was holding between her teeth, while trying to introduce its further end into a fresh cover, and rushed from the room, to return in the twinkling of an eye with one of those forlornly tawdry hats, peculiar to the foreign servant. They always seemed to be trimmed with samples, boasting a pale spring blossom twisted with a dahlia or a few hips and haws of autumnal tinting, a bit of feather, always straight; a bit of lace, always cotton; a scrap of velvet, always dusty--the whole incongruity invariably suggesting the police station, no matter how respectable the wearer of the "mussy" confection may be. For a moment Lena looked frightened as Sybil's long fingers swiftly tore the rubbish apart; but a glance at the deep rich glow of color in the crushed velvet rose with the trail of bronzy-green leaves reassured her, and she smiled the whole breadth of her honest moon-face as she exclaimed: "Mein Gott! my Miss Lady! Dot mash-man will sure make me of der name of Miss Klippert, ven I make der Sunday valk, mit der roses on, youst like I com' by America! Ja! dot is too fine youst for Lena--all short! Dot make of me Miss Klippert--sure! you see now!" And full of excitement and happy anticipations, Lena rose like a hungry trout to Sybil's first cast, which was the remark: "I don't think Miss Dorothy is looking quite well?"