"I think you are really rather absurd about this little girl, Miss Wentworth; is that her name? It is the smallest of troubles, surely, to have to look after her for a day or two. Are you not making a peg of her to hang other worries on?" "Well, yes, perhaps so," said Florence, honestly. She would bear a good deal from Rex. "Perhaps I am. But that is just what I _do_ complain of. I'm tired, Rex, and cross, and they all know it. They needn't put anything fresh on me just now." "Who are _they_? It is only my aunt's doing, as far as I understand, is it not?" he said. "Of course mamma is responsible for the people's coming. But it's just as much the others' fault that it's all to fall on me. Alicia is too indolent for anything, and Trixie--you know, Rex, Trixie is going too far. She really forgets she's a lady sometimes. That's why mamma has to appeal to me in any difficulty of the kind." "Well, my dear child, you should be proud to feel it is so." Florence's face softened a little. "I might be," she said, "if I felt myself the least worthy of her confidence. I don't mean that I won't do what she asks; but look at the way I am doing it. I have wasted a couple of hours and any amount of temper this very morning over the thing. No, Rex, it's too late for me to learn to be unselfish and self-sacrificing, and all these fine things. I'm not Eva." "No, but you're Florence, which is much more to the purpose. And, if you care about my affection and interest in you--you have both, Florrie dear, and in no scant measure." Florence's head was turned away; for a moment she did not speak. Was it possible that a tear fell on her lap? Rex almost fancied it, and it touched him still more. "May not this very opportunity of self-denial, and having to take some trouble for another person, for perhaps small, if any, thanks--may it not perhaps be just the very best thing that could come in your way just now, dear?" he said, very gently. No one could have detected a shadow of "preachiness" in the words; besides there was that about the man, his perfect manliness, his simple dignity, that made such an association of ideas in connection with him impossible. Florence looted up. There _were_ tears in her eyes, but she was smiling, too. "Perhaps," she said. "How you do put things, Rex! Well, if I do try to be good about it, will you promise to praise me a little--just a little, quite privately you know, for encouragement; beginners need encouragement, and I've never tried to be unselfish in my life. At least--oh I _could_ have been, Rex!" "You could have been devotion itself, Florrie, I know," he said. "But devotion to a bad cause? However," seeing that she shrank from the allusion, "we need not touch upon that. I'll do what _I_ can to help you in this little matter, I promise you."