"Oh, I don't know," observed Phyllis, lightly; "some people have been rather horrid; have forgotten all about us, or not been nice. Don't you remember, Gerty, how Gerald St. Aubyn dodged round the corner at Baker Street the other day because he didn't care to be seen bowing to two shabby young women with heavy parcels? And, Lucy, have you forgotten what you told us about Jack Sinclair, when you met him, travelling from the north? How he never took any notice of you, because you happened to be riding third class, and had your old gown on? Jack, who used to make such a fuss about picking up one's pocket-handkerchief and opening the door for one." "It seems to me," said Gertrude, "that to think about those sort of things makes one almost as mean as the people who do them." "And directly a person shows himself capable of doing them, why, it ceases to matter about him in the least," added Lucy, with youthful magnificence. Gertrude was silent a moment, then said, with something of an effort: "Let us direct our attention to the charming new people we have got to know. One gets to know them in such a much more pleasant way, somehow." Lucy bent her head over her work, hiding her flushed face as she answered, "That is the best of being poor; one's chances of artificial acquaintanceships are so much lessened. One gains in quality what one loses in quantity." "How moral we are growing," cried Phyllis. "We shall be quoting Scripture next, and saying it is harder for the camel to get through the needle's eye, &c., &c." Gertrude laughed. "There is another point to consider," she said. "I suppose you both know that we are not making our fortunes?" "Yes," answered Lucy; "but, at the same time, the business has almost doubled itself in the course of the last three months." "That sounds more prosperous than it really is, Lucy. If it hadn't done so, we should have had to think seriously of giving it up. And, as it is, we cannot be sure, till the end of the year, that we shall be able to hold on." "You mean the end of the business year; next June?" "Yes; Mr. Russel is coming, and there is to be a great overhauling of accounts." Gertrude lay awake that night long after her sisters were asleep. Her brief rebellious mood of the morning had passed away, and, looking back on the year behind her, she experienced a measure of the content which we all feel after something attempted, something done. That she had been brought face to face with the sterner side of life, had lost some illusions, suffered some pain, she did not regret. It seemed to her that she had not paid too great a price for the increased reality of her present existence.