_Dress_ does make a vast deal of difference in one’s looks, and if that night two-thirds of the three hundred _particular_ friends, whose hands I shook, pronounced me “beautiful, handsome, charming, lovely,” and all that, it was owing chiefly, I think, to the fitness of my robes, and the brilliancy of my diamonds. These last were the subject of much remark, they being the finest which had ever been worn in W——, Ada _very good-naturedly_ saying, “she hoped my good fortune wouldn’t quite turn my head!” Mrs. Lansing’s party was followed by many more, and ere I was aware of it Mrs. Richard Delafield was quite a belle—what she said, what she did, and what she wore being pronounced _au fait_ by the fashionables of W——. Upon all this Ada looked jealously; never allowing an opportunity to pass without speaking slightingly of me, though always careful that Richard should not know of it. In his presence she was vastly kind, sitting at my feet, calling me “Aunty,” and treating me as if I had been twenty years her senior. At first she spent much more of her time at Sunny Bank than was at all agreeable to me, and I was not sorry when a little incident occurred which in a measure tended to keep her away. She had always been in the habit of treating my husband with a great show of affection, and now that he was, as she said, “an old married man,” she seemed to think it no matter how much she caressed him. Even _I_ dared not seat myself upon his knee as coolly as she would, and her temerity troubled me, particularly as I knew it was annoying to him. This I must have manifested in some way, for one morning, when as usual she entered our room without knocking, and perched herself on Richard’s knee, he pushed her off, saying, half in earnest, half in jest, “Don’t act so foolish, Ada, you make me sick, for now that I have Rose to pet me I can easily dispense with your caresses, which are rather too much of a good thing.” Ada was angry, and with a little hateful laugh, she said, turning to me, “_jealous_, I suppose, and have read your better half a lecture on propriety. When _I_ marry, I trust I shall have faith enough in my husband’s love for me, not to care even if he does chance to look at some one else.” I knew Richard would vindicate my cause, so I remained silent while he answered, “You do Rose injustice, for never have we exchanged a word concerning the manner you have assumed towards me, and which I should suppose your own sense of propriety would condemn. Were you my wife, ’twould be different.” “Your wife,” interrupted Ada, with bitter scorn, “I am not your wife, thank fortune, neither did I ever aspire to be, and I have yet to see the man whom I would for a moment think of marrying.” There was not the slightest cause for this speech, but Ada was angry; and, as if to exasperate her still more, Richard coolly asked, “Didn’t you think of marrying _Herbert Langley_ when you engaged yourself to him?”