Page:Traits and Trials.pdf/134

128 was drawn close to the fender. Mrs. Harcourt talked to her father, and the young ladies looked at each other, and at the stranger, slightingly enough. Mabel felt, rather than saw, that the looks had more of contempt than it was quite agreeable to suppose directed to herself. She glanced at them from time to time, when she thought herself unobserved: the Misses Harcourt seemed beings of another nature; and, naturally enough, exaggerating their advantages, found her self-estimate greatly lowered in the contrast. She felt a secret consciousness of being ridiculous—a fear singularly prompt to enter a childish mind; and, moreover, she was disappointed, though she knew not well how. With what joy did she hear supper announced!—and hastily assuming a seat, began to heap her cousin's plates with every delicacy in her reach. Faint "No thank you's" rewarded her trouble, when Mrs. Harcourt said, in her chilly, but dictatorial, manner, "Do you allow Miss Dacre to eat all this pastry? I never allow my daughters to touch any thing so unwholesome!" And Mabel saw, with dismay, her cousins sup upon a roast apple, a piece of bread and a glass of plain water.

Nine o'clock struck. "Young ladies, you will bid your grandfather good night."