the wood smoked in the bedroom fireplace, Mrs. Davilow, whose own weak
eyes suffered much from this inconvenience, spoke apologetically of it to
Gwendolen. If, when they were under the stress of traveling, she did not
appear at the breakfast table till every one else had finished, the only
question was, how Gwendolen's coffee and toast should still be of the
hottest and crispest; and when she appeared with her freshly-brushed
light-brown hair streaming backward and awaiting her mamma's hand to coil
it up, her large brown eyes glancing bright as a wave-washed onyx from
under their long lashes, it was always she herself who had to be tolerant
--to beg that Alice who sat waiting on her would not stick up her
shoulders in that frightful manner, and that Isabel, instead of pushing up
to her and asking questions, would go away to Miss Merry.

Always she was the princess in exile, who in time of famine was to have
her breakfast-roll made of the finest-bolted flour from the seven thin
ears of wheat, and in a general decampment was to have her silver folk
kept out of the baggage. How was this to be accounted for? The answer may
seem to lie quite on the surface:--in her beauty, a certain unusualness
about her, a decision of will which made itself felt in her graceful
movements and clear unhesitating tones, so that if she came into the room
on a rainy day when everybody else was flaccid and the use of things in
general was not apparent to them, there seemed to be a sudden, sufficient
reason for keeping up the forms of life; and even the waiters at hotels
showed the more alacrity in doing away with crumbs and creases and dregs
with struggling flies in them. This potent charm, added to the fact that
she was the eldest daughter, toward whom her mamma had always been in an
apologetic state of mind for the evils brought on her by a step-father,
may seem so full a reason for Gwendolen's domestic empire, that to look
for any other would be to ask the reason of daylight when the sun is
shining. But beware of arriving at conclusions without comparison. I