Thus severely did Cecil reflect on the friend she had been the means of bringing into the house, and had loved all the more for the kindnesses she had been able to show her.  But, then, who could have foreseen that the protegee would turn into a rival?

Her meditations were interrupted by the chief subject of them.

“What do you intend doing, Cecil, this afternoon?”

“It is very unsettling, people going away,” said she, serenely.  No occasion to let him see the satisfaction it gave her.  “Shall we go and skate at the Rink, presently?”

“Oh, ain’t you sick of that place?  Let us order your cutter, and look in on the Armstrongs’ toboggining party?”

“Enchanting!” said Cecil, brightening.  “But, dear me! it will be nearly over.”

“Not if you look sharp.  ‘Wings’ will take us there in half-an-hour; it isn’t five miles to the hill.  Don’t forget to leave your crinoline behind.”

Du Meresq rang the bell, and Cecil re-appeared in a few minutes, innocent of her “sans reflectum,” and in a clinging black velveteen suit, with a golden oriole in her cap, and a scarf of the same hue knotted about her waist.

“None so dusty,” said Bertie, approvingly.  “You look best in daring colours, Cecil.”

Personal praise from Du Meresq, however expressed, was not unwelcome to Cecil, who was sensitively alive to her want of beauty.  But she answered, carelessly,—­“Just a refuge for the destitute.  I can’t wear pale shades, or blue or green.”

“No, my bright brunette; but that Satanic mixture does not misbecome you,”—­and he murmured the words in “May Janet,”—­

  “The first town they came to there was a blue bride chamber,
   He clothed her on with silk, and belted her with amber.”

“Come and help me down with the toboggin, Bertie.  It is a-top of the book-shelf,”—­and they dragged down a mysterious structure of maple wood, having the appearance of a plank six feet long by two wide, and turned up at one end.  It had red cord reins, and Cecil’s monogram, neatly painted, on the outside.

“We must show off our smart toboggin, I suppose; though where on earth we can put it in the cutter I can’t think,” said Du Meresq.

“I had rather hold it on my lap than not take it.  Here comes ‘Wings,’”—­and a high-stepping American horse, bought out of a sulky, as not sufficiently justifying his name for racing purposes, dashed up to the door with the smallest and prettiest cutter in the city.  The robes were white wolf-skins, bordered with black bear.  The one hanging from the back exhibited a bear’s head and claws on the white ground.  Both robes and bells were mounted in scarlet and white; and the masks of two owls occupied the place of rosettes on “Wings’” head-stall.

“Well,” said Bertie, “we are, luckily, not in Hyde Park; and I suppose a sleigh can’t be too bizarre.  Is this the creation of your festive fancy, Cecil?”