Missy was very bitter and unhappy, about these days. She knew what all Yellowcoats was saying about Mr. Andrews and his cousin, for they said that to her openly. And she surmised what they did not say openly to her, to wit: that the cause of her own unhappy looks was her disappointment in the matter. How can one help unhappy looks? One can help unhappy words; one can do all sorts of things that are meant to mean happy acts, but how to keep the cloud off one's face at all hours and moments, is an art yet in the bowels of time. Missy knew she looked unhappy, and she knew she could not dissemble it. She knew, by this time, that she was jealous, and jealous not only in the matter of Jay. She knew that, deride him as she might, the silent widower was an object of interest to her. She did not yet acknowledge to herself that she cared for him, but she did acknowledge that it was important to her that he cared for her, that he gave her a certain sort of admiration. Alas! she felt a doubt now whether he gave her even a small degree of respect. For who can respect a jealous woman? And she had been jealous, even before she saw her rival, or knew more of her than that she might be her rival. There is nothing kills self-respect like jealousy. Missy hated and despised herself from the moment that she knew she was jealous. She felt herself no longer mistress of her words and actions. Begin the morning with the best resolutions in the world, before noon she would have said or done something that upset them all. She had such evil thoughts of others, such an eating, burning discontent with herself. She remembered her childish days, when her jealousy of her stepfather made her a little fiend. "I was brought up on it, I learned it with my alphabet,--it is not my fault, it is my fate," she said to herself with bitterness. It was very fortunate perhaps, as she could dissemble so ill, that the two houses saw so little of each other. Flora was not of a jealous nature, and it seemed as if she had very little to be jealous about. She was having it all her own way apparently, and she longed to flaunt her triumphs in her rival's face. That was the one thing that she felt she was not succeeding in. She could not be sure Missy knew it, every time she went out to drive with Mr. Andrews, and that took away half the pleasure. Miss Rothermel kept herself so much out of reach of criticism it was unsatisfactory. Pure speculation grew tiresome. It was the longing of Flora's heart to have another meeting, and to display Mr. Andrews, but Missy baulked her. At church it could have been accomplished, but most unhappily Mr. Andrews wouldn't go to church (at least with them). His amiable and accomplished cousins could make him do a good deal, but they couldn't make him do that. Neither could they make him talk about his neighbors nor laugh at any of their sarcasms.