Mrs. Carter, minus any improvements. But he's mistaken; I'm not half
as bad as I seem. I'm only what you've made me."

Mrs. Hamilton turned away, thinking that if her daughter could so
easily give up Walter Hamilton, _she_ would not. She was resolved upon
an alliance between him and Lenora. And who ever knew _her_ to fail in
what she undertook?

She had wrung from her husband the confession that "he believed there
was a sort of childish affection between Walter and Kate Kirby, though
'twas doubtful whether it ever amounted to anything." She had also
learned that he was rather averse to the match, and though Lenora had
not yet been named as a substitute for Kate, she strove in many ways
to impress her husband with a sense of her daughter's superior
abilities, at the same time taking pains to mortify Margaret by
setting Lenora above her.

For this, however, Margaret cared but little, and it was only when
her mother ill-treated Willie, which she frequently did, that her
spirit was fully roused.

At Mrs. Hamilton's first marriage she had been presented with a
handsome glass pitcher, which she of course greatly prized. One day it
stood upon the stand in her room, where Willie was also playing with
some spools which Lenora had found and arranged for him. Malta, the
pet kitten, was amusing herself by running after the spools, and when
at last Willie, becoming tired, laid them on the stand, she sprang
toward them, upsetting the pitcher, which was broken in a dozen
pieces. On hearing the crash Mrs. Hamilton hastened toward the room,
where the sight of her favorite pitcher in fragments greatly enraged