They exactly matched the feather than hung down on one side of a little straw hat which was turned up on the other side, and worn at a dashing angle on her glossy black ringlets. French kid gloves of the same pink completed a toilet which she had thought to be, until this painful moment, in the first crack of the mode. Doubt now entered her soul; she turned her anxious gaze upon her cousin. “It isn’t! You are saying it to vex me!”

“No wish to vex you. Just thought you wanted to be up to the knocker.”

“I do—I’m up to the knocker!”

“Not with those pink bows,” said Mr. Hethersett firmly. “Quite pretty, but dashed commonplace! Ought to be cherry. Give you a new touch!”

With these words he made his bow to both ladies, and proceeded on his way, leaving his cousin torn between wrath and a growing conviction that he was right, and Nell a good deal amused.

“If Felix were not related to me I should cut his acquaintance!” said Letty, glaring vengefully after him. “He is prosy, and uncivil, besides placing himself on far too high a form! And now I come to think of it I didn’t above half like his waistcoat!” She transferred her gaze to Nell, as Mr. Hethersett’s exquisitely tailored person receded in the distance. “If he thinks my ribbons insipid I am astonished that he hadn’t the effrontery to say that your dress was commonplace! Depend upon it, he thinks you would look more becomingly in purple, or puce, or scarlet! Odious creature!”

“Oh, he couldn’t say that to me, when he told me weeks ago never to wear those strong colours!” said Nell, whose gown of Berlin silk was just the colour of her eyes. “That was when I was wearing that maroon pelisse. I promise you, he was quite as odious to me. Don’t regard it!”

“I never pay the least heed to a word he says,” replied Letty, in a lofty voice. She relapsed into thoughtful silence while the barouche proceeded on its way, but said after several minutes: “Do you think I should tell my woman to dye this feather, or purchase a new one?”