‘We have been so much together. I have learned to be useful to him.’ ‘Yes; you have spent your life with him, while I have been an outcast and an alien.’ ‘Daphne, you have no right to speak like that. My father is a man of peculiar temper. It pleased him to have only one daughter at home till both were grown up. You were more lively than I—younger by seven years—and he fancied you would be noisy. He is a nervous man, wanting an atmosphere of complete repose. And now you are grown up, and have come home for good; and I really cannot see any reason why you should complain.’ ‘No; there is nothing to complain about,’ cried Daphne bitterly, ‘only that I have been cheated out of a father’s love. Not by you, Lina dearest; no, not by you,’ she exclaimed, when her sister would have spoken. ‘I am not base enough to be jealous of you; you who have been my good angel always. No, dear; but he has cheated me. My father has cheated me in not giving me a chance of getting at his heart when I was a child. What is the good of my trying now? I come home to him as a stranger. How can he be expected to care for me?’ ‘If he does not love you now, my pet—and mind, I don’t admit that it is so—he will soon learn to be fond of you. He can’t help admiring my sweet young sister,’ said Madoline, with tearful eyes. ‘I will never plague you about him any more, dear,’ protested Daphne, with a penitent air. ‘I will try to be satisfied with your affection. You do love me, don’t you?’ ‘With all my strength.’ ‘And to do my duty in that state of life, etc., etc., etc.’ ‘Talking of duty, Daphne, I have been wanting to make a suggestion for the last week or two,’ said Madoline gently. ‘Don’t you think it would be better for you if you were to employ yourself a little more?’ ‘Employ myself!’ cried Daphne. ‘Why, I have been tremendously busy for the last three days—about the dingey.’ ‘Dearest, you are laughing at me. I mean that at seventeen—’ ‘And a half,’ interjected Daphne, with dignity. ‘At seventeen your education can hardly be completed.’ ‘I know ridiculously little, though I have been outrageously crammed. I’m afraid all the sciences and languages and literature have got mixed up in my brain, somehow,’ said Daphne; ‘but I am awfully fond of poetry. I know a good deal of Tennyson by heart. I could repeat every line of “The Lotos Eaters,” if you asked me,’ said Daphne, blushing unaccountably. ‘I think you ought to read, dear,’ pursued Madoline gravely. ‘Why, so I do. Didn’t I read three volumes of “Sair for Somebody,” in a single day, in order that the book might go back to Mudie’s?’ ‘That rubbishing story! Daphne dear, you know I am talking of serious reading.’