"Children, you drive me wild. Zell, leave the room, and don't show
yourself again till you can behave yourself."

Zell was now sobbing, partly in sorrow and partly in anger, but she
let fly a few more Parthian arrows over her shoulder as she passed
out.

"This is a pretty way to treat one on their birthday. I came home with
heart as light as the snowflakes around me, and now you have spoiled
everything. I don't know how it is, but I always have a good time
everywhere else, but there is something in this house that often sets
one's teeth on edge," and the door banged appropriately with a
spiteful emphasis as the last word was spoken.

"Poor child," said Edith, "it _is_ too bad that she should be so
dashed with cold water on her birthday."

"She isn't a child," said the eldest sister, rising from the sofa and
sweeping from the room, "though she often acts like one, and a very
bad one too. Her birthday should remind her that if she is ever to be
a woman, it is time to commence," and the stately young lady passed
coldly away. Edith, went to the window and looked dejectedly out into
the early gloom of the declining winter day. Mrs. Allen sighed and
looked more nervous and uncomfortable than usual.

The upholsterer had done his part in that elegant home, The feet sank
into the carpets as in moss. Luxurious chairs seemed to embrace the
form that sank into them. Everything, was padded, rounded, and
softened, except tongues and tempers. If wealth could remove the