character than he had been able to do. Mary knew she herself had
made mistakes, but she could not be humble for her father, or think
any place more improving than under his roof.

And Kate meanwhile had her own views. And when all the good-byes
were over, and she sat by the window of the railway carriage,
watching the fields rush by, reduced to silence, because "Papa" had
told her he could not hear her voice, and had made a peremptory sign
to her when she screamed her loudest, and caused their fellow-
travellers to look up amazed, she wove a web in her brain something
like this:- "I know what my aunts will be like: they will be just
like ladies in a book. They will be dreadfully fashionable! Let me
see--Aunt Barbara will have a turban on her head, and a bird of
paradise, like the bad old lady in Armyn's book that Mary took away
from me; and they will do nothing all day long but try on flounced
gowns, and count their jewels, and go out to balls and operas--and
they will want me to do the same--and play at cards all Sunday!
'Lady Caergwent,' they will say, 'it is becoming to your position!'
And then the young countess presented a remarkable contrast in her
ingenuous simplicity," continued Kate, not quite knowing whether she
was making a story or thinking of herself--for indeed she did not
feel as if she were herself, but somebody in a story. "Her waving
hair was only confined by an azure ribbon, (Kate loved a fine word
when Charlie did not hear it to laugh at her;) and her dress was of
the simplest muslin, with one diamond aigrette of priceless value!"

Kate had not the most remote notion what an aigrette might be, but
she thought it would sound well for a countess; and she went on
musing very pleasantly on the amiable simplicity of the countess, and
the speech that was to cure the aunts of playing at cards on a