Going about with other city misses, who cared for nothing but pleasure, and who flattered and petted her because of her beauty and her pretty, proud ways (and maybe because of her father's money too; though Miss Mildred didn't say that), she was getting to think too much of herself, and to care too much for fine dresses and sweetmeats and idle chatter about nothing at all." (How Hilda's cheeks burned as she remembered the long seances in her room, she on the sofa, and Madge in the arm-chair, with the box of Huyler's or Maillard's best always between them! Had they ever talked of anything "worth the while," as mamma would say?
She remembered mamma's coming in upon them once or twice, with her sweet, grave face.

She remembered, too, a certain uneasy feeling she had had for a moment--only for a moment--when the door closed behind her mother.
But Madge had laughed, and said, "Isn't your mother perfectly sweet?
She doesn't mind a bit, does she ?" and she had answered, "Oh, no!" and had forgotten it in the account of Helen McIvor's new bonnet.) "And then Miss Mildred said, 'I had meant to take her into the country with me this summer, and try to show the child what life really means, and let her learn to know her brothers and sisters in the different walks of this life, and how they live, and what they do.

I want her to see for herself what a tiny bit of the world, and what a silly, useless, gilded bit, is the little set of fashionable girls whom she has chosen for her friends.

But this sudden call to California has disarranged all my plans.

I cannot take her with me there, for the child is not well, and country air and quiet are necessary for her bodily health.