Dora sat down, and Lucy pounced on one pattern after another, folding them between her fingers and explaining eagerly how this or that would look if it were cut so, or trimmed so. 'Oh, Dora, look--this pink gingham with white spots! Don't you think it's a love? And, you know, pink always suits me, except when it's a blue-pink. But you don't call that a blue-pink, do you? And yet it isn't salmon, certainly--it's something between. It _ought_ to suit me, but I declare--' and suddenly, to Dora's dismay, the child flung down the patterns she held with a passionate vehemence--'I declare nothing seems to suit me now! Dora!'--in a tone of despair--'_Dora!_ don't you think I'm going off? My complexion's all dull, and--and--why I might be thirty!' and running over to the glass, draped in green cut-paper, which adorned the mantelpiece, Lucy stood before it examining herself in an agony. And, indeed, there was a change. A touch of some withering blight seemed to have swept across the whole dainty face, and taken the dewy freshness from the eyes. There was fever in it--the fever of fret and mutiny and of a starved self-love. Dora looked at her cousin with less patience than usual--perhaps because of the inevitable contrast between Lucy's posings and the true heartaches of the world. 'Lucy, what nonsense! You're just a bit worried, and you make such a lot of it. Why can't you be patient?' 'Because I can't!' said Lucy, sombrely, dropping into a chair, and letting her arm fall over the back. 'It's all very well, Dora. You aren't in love with a man whom you never see, and whom your father has a spite on! And you won't do anything to help me--you won't move a finger. And, of _course,_ you might!' 'What could I do, Lucy?' cried Dora, exasperated. 'I can't go and ask young Grieve to marry you. I do wish you'd try and put him out of your head, that I do. You're too young, and he's got his business to think about. And while Uncle Tom's like this, I can't be always putting myself forward to help you meet him. It would be just the way to make him think something bad--to make him suspect--' 'Well, and why shouldn't he suspect?' said Lucy, obstinately, her little mouth set and hard; 'it's all rubbish about girls leaving it all to the men. If a girl doesn't show she cares about a man, how's he to know--and when she don't meet him--and when her father keeps her shut up--_shameful!'_ She flung the word out through her small, shut teeth, the brows meeting over her flashing eyes. 'Oh! it's shameful, is it--eh, Miss Purcell?' said a harsh, mimicking voice coming from the dark passage leading into the shop.