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my happiness—could he have brought her down here, set her here, at my door, her and her friends?—I’m bound and gagged and pinioned, Celia, and laid at Hester’s feet.’—The scorching simile returned to her.—‘He doesn’t know it, poor darling;—no man ever knows these things;—but she does; she knows that I have to swallow anything she presents me with, without a grimace;—like Mr. Gales and his twittering little mistress!—If Clive had the least bit of fear for me, for our relationship, his and mine, he would know that I ran away to hide from him!’ And the hot tears rose and she pressed her handkerchief angrily against them.

‘But, then—why did they come? What made them come at all?—if it wasn’t simply because they thought it would give you pleasure?’ said Celia after a moment, finding her way, and Monica’s tears were checked as she, too, tried to think why they had come.

‘Because Hester wished to display her generosity to Clive; because she wished to please Clive,’ she found.—‘I don’t know why, unless it’s that.—Forgive me, Celia; you see me as the tigress mother; the hateful tigress mother. Perhaps I am.’ She dried her eyes and sat gazing out at the green.

‘No; it’s only that you are so different, you and