" Wait a minute. They are not so bad at all. You
only think so because they are yours. Hold on, and
I'll look in my coat-pocket and see. I think I've got a
pair there that will fit you," whispered Bijou back
again, consolingly. Accordingly, Miss Brown looked,
found no gloves, put her head out of the door, spoke to
an usher whom she found there, and returned to her
seat. Five minutes later there was a knock at the door,
which Ethel did not hear, owing to her interest in
Desdemona. An envelope was handed to Bijou, which,
when unobserved, she quietly tore off, and, going back
to Ethel, slipped into her hand a pair of eight-buttoned
gants de Suede. The relief of Sebastopol was nothing
compared to Ethel's as she breathed out a fervent
" Thank you very much indeed ; but a fresh pair ?" and
hastily drew them on. It may not be out of place to
mention that Bijou got another pair next day, with an
eminently lady-like note stating, in Ethel's bold hand



ON THIS SIDE. 163

but rather weak style, "that some girls would have
been rather glad to see another placed at a disadvan-
tage, and other girls would not at all have cared how
other girls appeared;" also that "one would not so
much have minded how one was dressed in one's own
country, but that one did not like to make one's self
ridiculous in the eyes of foreigners," as well as that
the writer was hers affectionately, "Ethel Maude
Heathcote," from which it will be seen that if Miss
Brown did a little kindness she was certainly paid for
it in the right kind of coin. Eich as Mrs. Sykes was,
perhaps she was bankrupt in this particular, for, having
occasion to borrow Bijou's exquisite fan during the
evening, she kept and used it during her whole stay in
New York, and finally sent it home, a good deal the
worse for wear, wrapped up in a fragment of news-
paper, without a line of acknowledgment, by Parsons,
who for very shame invented a civil message on her
own responsibility. But for these episodes, the evening
passed very much like others of its kind. Mrs. Sykes
talked a little in a patronizing way to Mrs. 