"Nothing--nothing at all," declared Kitty; but she suffered herself to be drawn into Elizabeth's room, and there, sinking into a low seat by the fire, she detailed her wrongs. "He hates me; I know he does, and I hate him! He thinks me a horrid, frivolous girl; and so I am! But he needn't tell me that he does not want to be a friend of mine!" "Well, perhaps, you are rather too old to take him for a friend in the way you used to do," said Elizabeth, smiling a little. "You were a child then; and you are eighteen now, you know, Kitty. He treats you as a woman: that is all. It is a compliment." "Then I don't like his compliments: I hate them!" Kitty asseverated. "I would rather he let me alone." "Don't think about him, dear. If he does not want to be friendly with you, don't try to be friendly with him." "I won't," said Kitty, in the tone of one who has taken a solemn resolution. Then she rose, and surveyed herself critically in Elizabeth's long mirror. "I am sure I looked very nice," she said. "This pink dress suits me to perfection and the lace is lovely. And then the silver ornaments! I'm glad I did not wear anything that he gave me, at any rate. I nearly put on the necklace he sent me when I was seventeen; I'm glad I did not." "Dearest Kitty, why should you mind what he thinks?" said Elizabeth, coming to her side, and looking at the exquisitely-pretty little figure reflected in the glass, a figure to which her own, draped in black lace, formed a striking contrast. But she was almost sorry that she had said the words, for Kitty immediately threw herself on her cousin's shoulder and burst into tears. The fit of crying did not last long, and Kitty was unfeignedly ashamed of it: she dried her tears with a very useless-looking lace handkerchief, laughed at herself hysterically, and then ran away to her own room, leaving Elizabeth to wish that the sense and spirit that really existed underneath that butterfly-like exterior would show itself on the surface a little more distinctly. But the last thing she dreamed of was that Kitty, with all her little follies, would outrage Rupert's sense of the proprieties in the way she did in the course of the following morning. Rupert was standing alone in the drawing-room, looking out of a window which commanded an extensive view. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Heron had come downstairs. Kitty had breakfasted in her own room; Elizabeth was busy. Mr. Vivian was wondering whether it might not be as well to go back to London. It vexed him to see little Kitty Heron flirting with half-a-dozen men at once. A voice at the door caused him to turn round. Kitty was entering, and as her hands were full, she had some difficulty in turning the handle. Rupert moved forward to assist her, and uttered a courteous good-morning, but Kitty only looked at him with flushed cheeks and wide-open resentful eyes, and made no answer.