“How ridiculously sensitive you are on the point of your maternal history, Gabrielle. I wish I could make you forget all about it, that you might not remind one of it so often,” Zai says wearily. For Gabrielle Beranger, like many of us, has a decided cross. And that cross is the social status of the French _bouquetière_ that Lord Beranger had elevated to his bosom and position in the days of his hot-headed, unwary youth. No one would believe such a peccadillo of him now--starch as his own stick-ups; full of proprieties, and a slave to the voice of the world. Her dead mother’s birth is the skeleton in Gabrielle’s cupboard that is dragged out for her own and her step-sisters’ benefit continually, and yet, this same sensitiveness is curiously inconsistent with her self-complacency and undeniable pretension. “Yes, Gabrielle, you are absurdly sensitive on some things. I can’t think why, since we are all Lord Beranger’s daughters,” Zai murmurs carelessly, pulling off absently the leaves from a little bough of willow, and wondering what Carl and Crystal are amusing themselves with. Perhaps, ah! the thought makes her feel quite sick! Crystal Meredyth is regaling Carl on the same sort of passionate music as Gabrielle has favoured Lord Delaval with. “Yes; we are all Lord Beranger’s daughters; but you all have the _sangre azul_ running through your veins, while I have the muddy current of the Quartier Latin to boast of; and then again, all the money in the place, little as it is, came with my step-mother, and Papa and I are dependents on her bounty.” Zai does not answer, the subject is threadbare, and silence is so pleasant with the mighty elms sending long shadows across the emerald grass, with the foliage rustling gently, and fleecy white clouds scudding along the sapphire sky, tempering the amber heat. The muddy current that Gabrielle hates is not the only misfortune Lord Beranger’s early imprudence has brought her. He had married a second time, and the three girls, Beatrice, Zaidie and Mirabelle were no longer in actual babyhood when Gabrielle was brought from the French people who had charge of her to Belgravia--brought with all the faults and failings of bourgeoisie, faults and failings that to Lady Beranger’s notions are too dreadful. “It is far easier to eradicate bad temper, or want of principle, than to put _savoire faire_, or a due sense of the convenances, into a girl,” she always says, but all the same she has tried to do her duty by this step-daughter of hers, in her cold steely way, and is quite convinced that she has been the means of snatching the brand from the burning, and saving a soul from perdition. As Gabrielle and Zai stand side by side, quite a family resemblance can be traced between them. But it is only a general resemblance after all; for they are really as dissimilar as light and darkness.