Kate laughed merrily. “_We_ abusing her! I like that! Fancy _you_ saying what you think about milady! No, no; the time for that isn’t come yet. But wait till you’re tried, that’s all. It takes longer to provoke you than it does to irritate either of us. And then, if mamma is fond of anyone in the world, she is of you; I suppose because you are so very meek, always ready to let her think she is in the right, let her do what she will. But about this muslin, Rhoda. Hammond says there certainly is not enough for both; so I suppose, as it will not do for Miss Vavasour to look skimping before the eyes of London, you had better take the whole. Ah me!” stretching herself rather wearily as she stood before the cheval glass, and then letting her arms fall with a sigh too deep-drawn to have emanated from so young a breast; “ah me! how I wish I had a mother--a mother, I mean, like Lady Guernsey or Lady Pemberton, or even--don’t be shocked, you aristocratic thing!--even like Mrs. Clay. I want a motherly mother--one who would love and pet, and bore people about me--one that I could tell things to, and that would listen, and not look as if she thought one a fool. And besides--though that sounds horrid, I daresay--I should be glad of a mother who would care whether I looked nice, and who would give you, now that you are ‘coming out,’ enough of an allowance for you to dress as well as other girls. Sixty pounds a-year! Why, Lina de Lacy had that when she was fifteen, and mamma is twice as rich as Lady Guernsey. I wonder how you _will_ manage! Run in debt, I suppose, like Arthur. Poor Atty! But it will be worse for you than for him, if you are forced by money difficulties to marry someone that you don’t love, and--” “I shall never do that,” Rhoda said, but in a voice so low that Kate could scarcely catch the words. “So you think now; but, as I said before, wait till you are tried. And there is another thing, darling--you will have to marry for my sake. Only think, Rho dear, how happy we should be together! You with a nice home of your own, with no one to object to your ordering the carriage when you pleased, with no cross looks if you were a minute too late for prayers, with--” Rhoda interrupted her by a laugh. “You might exchange bad for worse,” she said sapiently. “All husbands are not like Lord Guernsey, and I suspect that very few homes are so happy as Sophy’s was. I daresay, if we could look into the insides of many people’s houses, we should see plenty of girls a good deal more to be pitied than we are. And, Katie dear, whether that be so or not, one thing is certain, namely, that it is wrong--wicked even, I think--to be discontented, and to abuse mamma. Whatever she does or says, _we_ have no right to sit in judgment on, or to find fault with. Don’t be put out with me for preaching, dear Katie. I know I am not half so clever as you are; but--”