Whenever the course of events proved objectionable, Miss Rylance took refuge in a complaint which she called her neuralgia, indicating that it was a species of disorder peculiar to herself, and of a superior quality to everybody else's neuralgia. 'You should live in the open air, like my sunburnt young friends yonder,' said the doctor, with a glance at the table where the young Wendovers were stuffing themselves; 'I am sure they never complain of neuralgia.' Urania looked daggers but spoke none. It was a wearisome afternoon for that injured young lady. Dr. Rylance dawdled over his tea, handed teacups and bread and butter, was assiduous with the sugar basin, devoted with the cream jug, talked and laughed with Miss Palliser, as if they had a world of ideas in common, and made himself altogether objectionable to his only child. By-and-by, when there was a general adjournment to the greenhouses and stables, Urania contrived to slip her arm through her father's. 'I thought I told you that Miss Palliser was my favourite aversion, papa,' she said, tremulous with angry feeling. 'I have some faint idea that you did express yourself unfavourably about her,' answered the doctor, with his consulting-room urbanity, 'but I am at a loss to understand your antipathy. The girl is positively charming, as frank as the sunshine, and full of brains.' 'I know her. You do not,' said Urania tersely. 'My dear, it is the speciality of men in my profession to make rapid judgments.' 'Yes, and very often to make them wrong. I was never so much annoyed in my life. I consider your attention to that girl a deliberate insult to me; a girl with whom I never could get on--who has said the rudest things to me.' 'Can I be uncivil to a friend of your friend Bessie?' 'There is a wide distance between being uncivil and being obsequiously, ridiculously attentive.' 'Urania,' said the doctor in his gravest voice, 'I have allowed you to have your own way in most things, and I believe your life has been a pleasant one.' 'Of course, papa. I never said otherwise.' 'Very well, my dear, then you must be good enough to let me take my own way of making life pleasant to myself, and you must not take upon yourself to dictate what degree of civility I am to show to Miss Palliser, or to any other lady.' Urania held her peace after this. It was the first deliberate snub she had ever received from her father, and she added it to her lengthy score against Ida. CHAPTER VI. A BIRTHDAY FEAST. Ida Palliser's holidays were coming to an end, like a tale that is told. There was only one day more left, but that day was to be especially glorious; for it was Bessie Wendover's birthday, a day which from time immemorial--or, at all events, ever since Bessie was ten years old--had been sacred to certain games or festivities--a modernized worship of the great god Pan.