"Will this do for you, Salome?" she said, as she brought it into the room where her sister was seated and placed it on the floor beside her. "You said the other day that you wished you had a tall palm for the drawing-room. Is this tall enough?"
"Oh, what a lovely one!" exclaimed Salome. "Do? I should think it would! But you should not have bought it, Juliet. It was a pity to spend your money so."
"I spend my money as I please," said Juliet. "Since you admire the palm, perhaps you will be good enough to accept it from me, and to take care of it for my sake?"
"Oh, Juliet How kind of you! It is the very thing I wanted," said Salome, who yet could not help feeling some regret that Juliet should have bought the palm just now, when it would have to be left almost immediately to the mercies of a caretaker.
"You need not thank me," said Juliet, in some confusion; "I expect I only bought it to please myself, as I do most things. Perhaps," she was constrained to add, "I shall one day do something so bad that you will hate the very sight of that palm, and wish I had not given it to you."
"Oh no, I hope not. I am not afraid of that indeed," said Salome. "I think—I hope, Juliet—that you and I are going to get on better in the future. Will you try, if I do?"
And turning, she threw her arm about Juliet's slight form, and bending forward kissed her on the forehead.
Juliet shrank from the kiss as if it stung her. She went hastily from the room, and Salome remained alone, her lips quivering and tears rising to her eyes. She could not but feel bitterly how Juliet had repulsed her. But was it not her own fault that their lives had grown so far apart, their greetings so cold and formal, that an unlooked-for caress from her should thus startle and apparently annoy Juliet?
Hannah was seated at her solid reading in her own room, when Juliet looked in to say, "Hannah, would you like to take my 'handy-volume' Thackerays to the seaside with you? I heard you say you meant to read Thackeray during the holidays."
"Oh, thank you, Juliet; I should be much obliged to you, if you are not afraid of the books getting hurt," said Hannah, surprised by this thoughtfulness on Juliet's part.