"Tush!" peevishly replied Mrs. Dalrymple, flinging the wrecks to the middle of the room. "A bonnet more or less--what does it matter?" Alice sat in thought; looking very pained, very perplexed. "It appears to me that you are on a wrong course altogether, Selina. The past is past; but you might strive to redeem it." "Strive against a whirlpool," sarcastically responded Selina. "You are getting deeper into it: by your own admission, you are having new things every day. It is adding fuel to fire." "I can't go naked." "But you must have a large stock of dresses by you." "Do you think I would appear in last year's things? I can't and I won't. You do not understand these matters, Alice." "Then you ought not to 'appear' at all. You should have stopped at the Grange." "As good be in a nunnery. Once you have been initiated into the delights of a London season, you can only come back to it. Fancy my stopping at that mouldy old Grange." "What is to be the end of all this?" lamented Alice. "Ah, that's it! The End. One does not know, you see, how soon it may come. I'd not so much mind if I could get all the season first. The torment of it is, that Damereau is pressing for payment. She is throwing out hints that she can't supply me any longer on credit--and what on earth am I to do if she won't? What a shame it is that there should be so much worry in the world!" "The greatest portion of it is of our own creating, Selina. And no worry ought to have the power very seriously to disturb our peace," the younger sister continued, in a whisper. "Now, Alice, you are going to bring up some of those religious notions of yours! They will be lost upon me. One cannot have one's body in this world and one's heart in the next." "Oh yes, we can," said Alice, earnestly. "Well, I don't suppose I am going into the next yet, unless I torment myself out of this one; so don't go on about it," was Selina's graceless reply. But as Alice rose to leave, her mood changed. "Forgive my fractiousness, Alice; indeed, you would excuse it, if you only knew how bothered and miserable I am. It makes me cross with myself and with other people." "Ma'am," interrupted Ann, Mrs. Dalrymple's maid, "Lady Burnham is at the door, waiting for you." "I am not going out today," answered her mistress, rising. "I have changed my mind." "Oh, my patience!" uttered the maid. "What's this? Why, ma'am, it's never your bonnet?" No man is a hero to his valet-de-chambre: I fear the same may be said of woman. "Bother the bonnet," was the undignified reply of Mrs. Dalrymple, as she flirted the pieces further away with her foot. Ann humbly followed them to the far-off corner, and there took them into her hands. "Reach me another bonnet," said her mistress; "I think I will go, after all. What's the use of staying indoors?" "Which bonnet, ma'am?" "Oh, I don't know! Bring some out."