"She has a more independent nature than yours, my dear. I, for one, am rejoiced that you two are unlike. I could not endure to lose my darling friend, and somehow I never could understand Sarah; never could get near to her, you know." "I do not wonder at that. It is just so with me, sisters though we are. However, Sarah means well, if her manner is blunt and sometimes cold." The entrance of the person under discussion checked the conversation at this point, and both young ladies began to count their stitches aloud, to avoid the appearance of the foolish embarrassment that ever overtakes a brace of gossips at being thus interrupted. Sarah's work lay on her stand near the window, where she had thrown it when the crying child attracted her notice, and she resumed it now. It was a dress for Jeannie. It was a rare occurrence for the second sister to fashion anything so pretty and gay for her own wear. "Have you taken to fancy work at last?" asked Victoria, seeing that the unmade skirt was stamped with a rich, heavy pattern for embroidery. "No!" Sarah did not affect her sister's friend, and did not trouble herself to disguise her feelings towards her. Lucy explained: "She is making it for Jeannie. She does everything for that child." "You are very sisterly and kind, I am sure," Victoria continued, patronizingly. "You must quite despise Lucy and myself for thinking of and doing so much for ourselves, while you are such a pattern of self-denial." A blaze shot up in Sarah's eye; then she said, coldly: "I am not self-denying. Have I ever found fault with you or Lucy for doing as you like?" "Oh, no, my dear. But you take no interest in what we enjoy. I dare say, now, you would think it a dull business to work day after day for three or four weeks together, crocheting a shawl which may go out of fashion before one has a chance to sport it at a watering-place." "I certainly should!" The curl of the thin upper lip would have answered for her had she not spoken. "And you hate the very sight of shellwork and cone-frames, and Grecian painting, and all such vanities?" "If I must speak the truth, I do--most heartily." Victoria was not easily turned from her purpose. "Come, Sarah! Tell us what you would have us, poor trifling, silly things, do to kill the time." "If you must be a murderer, do it in your own way. I have nothing to say in the matter." "Do you mean that time never hangs upon your hands--that you are never ennuyee--blasee?" "Speak English, and I will answer you." "I want to know," said the persevering tormentor, "if the hum-drum books upstairs, your paint-box and your easel are such good company that you are contented and happy always when you are with them--if you never get cross with yourself and everybody else, and wonder what you were put into the world for, and why the world itself was made, and wish that you could sleep until doomsday. Do you ever feel like this?"