Elizabeth, ignorant as yet of the artistic excellence of the genuine coffee-colour of age, had contrived to wash to a respectable whiteness. And to Eleanor was given, from the little stock of family trinkets, a string of pearls, fastened with an emerald clasp--pearls the size of small peas, and dingy and yellow from never having been laid out on the grass, as, according to a high authority, pearls should be. Upon the whole, their finery, turned into money, would probably have bought up three of the most magnificent costumes worn in Melbourne that night; yet it can scarcely be said to have been effective. Neither Mrs. Aarons nor her lady friends had the requisite experience to detect its quality and understand what we may call its moral value. Only one person amongst the company discovered that Eleanor's pearls were real, and perhaps only that one had been educated in lace, save rudimentally, in the Melbourne shops. And amongst the _nouveaux riches_, as poor gentlefolks well know, to have no claims to distinction but such as are out of date is practically to have none. Late in the evening, Paul Brion, who had not intended to go to this particular Friday, lest his presence should betray to the sisters what he was so anxious to conceal from them, found that he could not resist the temptation to see with his own eyes how they were getting on; and when he had entered the room, which was unusually crowded, and had prowled about for a few minutes amongst the unpleasantly tall men who obstructed his view in all directions, he was surprised and enraged to see the three girls sitting side by side in a corner, looking neglected and lonely, and to see insolent women in long-tailed satin gowns sweeping past them as if they had not been there. One glance was enough to satisfy _him_ that there had been no fear of their not looking "nice." Patty's bright and flushed but (just now) severe little face, rising so proudly from the soft lace about her throat and bosom, seemed to him to stand out clear in a surrounding mist, apart and distinct from all the faces in the room--or in the world, for that matter. Elizabeth's dignified serenity in an uncomfortable position was the perfection of good breeding, and made a telling contrast to the effusive manners of those about her; and fair Eleanor, sitting so modestly at Elizabeth's side, with her hands, in a pair of white silk mittens, folded in her lap, was as charming to look at as heart of man could desire. Other men seemed to be of his opinion, for he saw several hovering around them and looking at them with undisguised interest; but the ladies, who, he thought, ought to have felt privileged to take them up, appeared to regard them coldly, or to turn their backs upon them altogether, literally as well as metaphorically. It was plain that Mrs. Aarons had introduced them to nobody, probably wishing (as was indeed the case--people of her class being morbidly sensitive to the disgrace