“Oh, mamma,” said Blue and Red, “we saw the Miss Browns driving on the road, and they had such pretty silver-grey frocks, with feathers in their hats to match.  We wish we could have feathers to match our frocks.”

And later Sophia, seeking her step-mother, found her in her own room, privately weeping.  The rare sight rent her heart.

“If I am their mother” (she began her explanation hurriedly, wiping her tears) “I can say truthfully they’re as pretty a pair of girls as may be seen on a summer day.  You had your turn, Sophia; it’s very noble of you to give up so much for us now, but it can’t be said that you didn’t have your turn of gaiety.”

Now Blue and Red were not in need of frocks, for before they left England their mother had stocked their boxes as though she was never to see a draper’s shop again.  But then, she had been in a severely utilitarian mood, and when she cut out the garments it had not occurred to her that Fashion would ever come across the fields of a Canadian farm.

Sophia rallied her on this mistake now, but resolutely abstracted certain moneys from the family purse and purchased for the girls white frocks.  She did not omit blue and red ribbons to distinguish between the frocks and between the wearers.  Trenholme had remarked of the girls lately that neither would know which was herself and which the other if the badge of colour were removed, and Sophia had fallen into the way of thinking a good deal of all he said.  She was busy weighing him in the scales of her approval and disapproval, and the scales, she hardly knew why, continued to balance with annoying nicety.

For the making up of the frocks, she was obliged to apply for advice to Eliza, who was the only patron of dressmakers with whom she was intimate.

“I think, on the whole, she is satisfactory,” said Eliza of one whom she had employed.  “She made the dress I have on, for instance; it fits pretty well, you see.”

Sophia did not resent this.  Eliza had had a rocket-like career of success in the hotel which pleased and amused her; but she felt that to forgive the Brown family for having a carriage and pair required large-mindedness while her father’s carriage still stood in the unfurnished drawing-room, and even Mrs. Rexford had given up hopes of finding horses to draw it.

Very soon after, their annual arrival, Mr. and Mrs. Brown and their two daughters came kindly to call on the new English family.  Principal Trenholme found time to run over by appointment and introduce his friends.  The visitors were evidently generous-minded, wholesome sort of people, with no high development of the critical faculty, travelled, well-read, merry, and kind.  Sophia confessed to herself after the first interview that, had it not been for their faulty degree of wealth and prosperity, she would have liked them very much.  Mrs. Bennett, whose uncle had been an admiral, considered them desirable friends for her daughter, and this was another reason why, out of pure contrariness, Sophia found liking difficult; but she determined for Trenholme’s sake to try—­a good resolution which lasted until she had taken Blue and Red to return the call, but no longer.