“I will change all this, when I grow up, Mrs. Austin,” I heard Evelyn say, one day.  “We shall have parties and pleasures then, like other people, and, instead of masters and tedious old church humdrums, Mr. Lodore and the like, you shall see beaux and belles dashing up to this out-of-the-way place; and I will make papa build a ballroom, and we shall have a band and supper once a month.  You know he can afford any thing he likes of that sort, and as for me—­”

“Child, it will never be,” she interrupted, shaking her head gravely.  “Mr. and Mrs. Monfort” (my father was again married then) “are too much wedded to their own ways for that, and, besides, you and Miriam will not be ready to go out together, and the money is all hers—­don’t forget that, my dear Evelyn, and you must go back to England to your own, and I—­”

“That I will never do,” she in turn interrupted haughtily.  “Play second fiddle, indeed, to mamma’s grand relations, mean, and proud, and presumptuous, I dare say, and full of scorn for me (a poor army-captain’s daughter), as they were for my father?  No, I shall stay here and shine to the best of my ability.  The money is all papa’s while he lives, and he is still a young man, you know, and Miriam’s turn will come when mine is over.  One at a time, you see.  Good gracious! it would seem like throwing away money, though, to dress up that little dingy thing in pearls and laces.  Ten to one but what she will marry that lame imp next door as soon as she is grown, and endow him with the whole of it—­that ‘little devil on two sticks,’ and I must have my run before then, of course.”  She laughed merrily at the conceit.

“I hear you, Evelyn Erie,” I exclaimed tragically from the balcony on which I sat, engaged, on this occasion, in illuminating, with the most brilliant colors my paint-box afforded, a book of engravings for the especial benefit of George Gaston.  It was his private opinion that Titian himself never painted with more skill, or gorgeous effect, than the youthful artist in his particular employ.  “I hear you, miss, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself to talk so behind his back, of a poor, afflicted boy like George, too good, a thousand times too good, to marry any one, even Cinderella herself.  ‘The devil on two sticks,’ indeed!”

“Don’t preach, I pray, Miriam.  You have quite a dispensation in that way lately, I perceive.  If you must eavesdrop, keep quiet about it now and hereafter, I beg.”

“I was not eavesdropping,” I screamed.  “I have been painting out here all the afternoon, and Mrs. Austin knows it, and so might you.  You are always accusing me of doing wrong and mean things that I would cut off my”—­hesitating for a comparison—­“my curls rather than do.  Let me alone!”

“Your curls, indeed!” and she came out of the window and stood on the balcony beside me.  “Do you call those tufts your curls?” taking one of them disdainfully with the tips of her dainty fingers, then pulling it sharply.  “They make you look like a little water-dog, that’s what they do, and I am going to cut them off at once.—­Bring me the scissors, Mrs. Austin, and let me begin.”