Page:Josephine Daskam--Sister's vocation.djvu/218

 must be admitted that her cousin thought her dowdy, under-dressed, and babyish-looking. At fourteen she had looked older than Ethel; at sixteen she had brought her skirts down definitely and heaped her hair high; now, at seventeen, she considered herself a woman grown.

As the coupe rolled through the darkening streets, her heart beat hard with excitement. Up to now she had hardly believed it all; it had seemed too good to be true. To live in a big city home, to command a coachman and a butler, to have one's hair dressed by a maid, to eat late dinners with flowers and cut-glass and silver, surrounded by men and women in brilliant evening dress, to drive in the Park, to

"You've not been in New York before, have you?" asked Ethel.

Her cousin's face flushed. Not sure of herself, and therefore suspicious, she found an utterly unintentional patronage in the simple question.

"Not—not often!" she answered, stiffly, and a silence fell between them.

"We've only been back a few days," vol-