taste of blood--a pale, diluted fluid, it is true, but it worked all the
effect of a fuller and richer draught.

It developed in Rosamund a sixth sense--one which was to lead her to
lengths that none of her kin could have anticipated. And to the rest of
the family, clucking and scratching in their own retired and restricted
barn-yard, there came the day when they discovered that their little
flock contained at least one bird of a different feather--a bird that
could paddle about the social pond with the liveliest, and could quack,
if need be, with the loudest.

Jane--who had even yet no adequate sense of the strength and pungency of
her younger sister's spirit, but who would not in any event have
hesitated to rush on an individual martyrdom that might secure some
consideration for the collective family--threw herself into the
discussion at once.

"No, don't let's have any party or dance or reception or anything at all.
Not even a two-by-four tea. Don't let's try to be anybody or know
anybody, or give anything or be considered anything. Let's go right on
rusting and vegetating; let's just dry up and shake apart and blow away,
with nobody the wiser for our having been here or the sorrier for our
having gone!"

Her mother heard this outburst with some surprise and not a little
resentment. "Well, Jane, you're quite surpassing yourself to-night. What
do you mean by all this?"

Jane exploded again.