'He'll have a house by the time you've done the sofa, and a wife to sit on it too.' 'Oh, Linda, you are so ill-natured.' 'Why, child, what do you want me to say? If you were to give him one of those grand long tobacco pipes they have in the shop windows, that's what he'd like the best; or something of that sort. I don't think he cares much for girls' presents, such as purses and slippers.' 'Doesn't he?' said Katie, mournfully. 'No; not a bit. You know he's such a rake.' 'Oh! Linda; I don't think he's so very bad, indeed I don't; and mamma doesn't think so; and you know Harry said on Easter Sunday that he was much better than he used to be.' 'I know Harry is very good-natured to him.' 'And isn't Charley just as good-natured to Harry? I am quite sure he is. Harry has only to ask the least thing, and Charley always does it. Do you remember how Charley went up to town for him the Sunday before last?' 'And so he ought,' said Linda. 'He ought to do whatever Harry tells him.' 'Well, Linda, I don't know why he ought,' said Katie. 'They are not brothers, you know, nor yet even cousins.' 'But Harry is very--so very--so very superior, you know,' said Linda. 'I don't know any such thing,' said Katie. 'Oh! Katie, don't you know that Charley is such a rake?' 'But rakes are just the people who don't do whatever they are told; so that's no reason. And I am quite sure that Charley is much the cleverer.' 'And I am quite sure he is not--nor half so clever; nor nearly so well educated. Why, don't you know the navvies are the most ignorant young men in London? Charley says so himself.' 'That's his fun,' said Katie: 'besides, he always makes little of himself. I am quite sure Harry could never have made all that about Macassar and Crinoline out of his own head.' 'No! because he doesn't think of such nonsensical things. I declare, Miss Katie, I think you are in love with Master Charley.' Katie, who was still sitting at the dressing-table, blushed up to her forehead; and at the same time her eyes were suffused with tears. But there was no one to see either of those tell-tale symptoms, for Linda was in bed. 'I know he saved my life,' said Katie, as soon as she could trust herself to speak without betraying her emotion--'I know he jumped into the river after me, and very, very nearly drowned himself; and I don't think any other man in the world would have done so much for me besides him.' 'Oh, Katie! Harry would in a moment.' 'Not for me; perhaps he might for you--though I'm not quite sure that he would.' It was thus that Katie took her revenge on her sister. 'I'm quite sure he would for anybody, even for Sally.' Sally was an assistant in the back kitchen. 'But I don't mean to say, Katie, that you shouldn't feel grateful to Charley; of course you should.'