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to dry, looking disgustedly at her own dyed finger-nails. "Now for
Avice's shoes before I scrub my hands."
Avice's shoes proved a lengthy task, since the younger Miss Rainham
had apparently discovered some clay to walk through in Regent's Park
on her way home from the last dancing lesson; and well- hardened clay
resists ordinary cleaning methods, and demands edged tools. The
luncheon bell rang loudly before Cecilia had finished. She gave the
shoes a final hurried rub, and then fell to cleansing her hands; arriving
in the dining-room, pink and breathless, some minutes later, to find a
dreary piece of tepid mutton rapidly congealing on her plate.

"I think you might manage to be down in time for meals, Cecilia," was
Mrs. Rainham's chilly greeting.
Cecilia said nothing. She had long realized the uselessness of any
excuses. To be answered merely gave her stepmother occasion for
further fault-finding--you might, as Cecilia told Bob, have a flawless
defence for the sin of the moment, but in that case Mrs. Rainham
merely changed her ground, and waxed eloquent about the sin of
yesterday, or of last Friday week, for which there might happen to be
no defence at all. It was so difficult to avoid being a criminal in Mrs.
Rainham's eyes that Cecilia had almost given up the attempt. She
attacked her greasy mutton and sloppy cabbage in silence, unpleasantly
conscious of her stepmother's freezing glance.
Mrs. Rainham was a short, stout woman, with colourless, rather
pinched features, and a wealth of glorious red hair. Some one had once
told her that her profile was classic, and she still rejoiced in believing it,
was always photographed from a side view, and wore in the house
loose and flowing garments of strange tints, calculated to bring out the
colour of her glowing tresses. Cecilia, who worshipped colour with
every bit of her artist soul, adored her stepmother's hair as thoroughly
as she detested her dresses. Bob, who was blunt and inartistic, merely
detested her from every point of view. "Don't see what you find to rave
about in it," he said. "All the warmth of her disposition has simply gone
to her head."
There was certainly little warmth in Mrs. Rainham's heart, where her
stepdaughter was concerned. She disapproved very thoroughly of
Cecilia in every detail--of her pretty face and delicate colouring, of the
fair hair that rippled and curled and gleamed in a manner so
light-hearted as to seem distinctly out of place in the dingy room, of the
slender grace that was in vivid contrast to her own stoutness. She
resented the very way Cecilia put on her clothes-- simple clothes, but
worn with an air that made her own elaborate dresses cheap and
common by comparison. It was so easy for her to look well turned out;
and it would never be easy to dress Avice, who bade fair to resemble
her mother in build, and had already a passion for frills and trimmings,

and a contempt for plain things. Mrs. Rainham had an uneasy
conviction that the girl who bore all her scathing comments in silence
actually dared to criticize her in her own mind--perhaps openly to Bob,
whose blue eyes held many unspoken things as he looked at her. Once
she had overheard him say to Cecilia: "She looks like an
over-ornamented pie!" Cecilia had laughed, and Mrs. Rainham had
passed on, unsuspected, her mind full of a wild surmise. They would
never dare to mean her--and yet--that new dress of hers was plastered
with queer little bits of purposeless trimmings. She never again wore it
without that terrible sentence creeping into her mind. And she had been
so pleased with it, too! An over-ornamented pie. If she could only have
been sure they meant her!
She thought of it again as she sat looking at Cecilia. The new dress was
lying on her bed, ready to be worn that afternoon; and Cecilia was
going to meet Bob--Bob, who had uttered the horrible remark. Well, at
least there should be no haste about the meeting. It would do Bob no
harm to cool his heels for a little. She set her thin lips tightly together,
as she helped the rice pudding.
The meal ended, amidst loud grumbles from Wilfred that the pudding
was rice; and Cecilia hurried off to find the flowers and arrange them.
The florist's box was near the vases left ready by the faithful Eliza; she
cut the string with a happy exclamation of "Daffodils!" as she lifted the
lid. Daffodils were always a joy; this afternoon they were doubly
welcome, because easy to arrange. She sorted them into long-necked
vases swiftly, carrying each vase, when filled, to the drawing-room--a
painful apartment, crowded with knick-knacks until it resembled a
bazaar stall, with knobby and unsteady