During the days that followed, Flossie devised an ingenious method of tormenting Ella; she laid out her pocket-money, of which she had a good deal, on the most preposterous ornaments—a pair of dangling cut-glass lustres, bead mats, a trophy of wax fruit under a glass shade, gaudy fire-screens and flowerpots, all of which she solemnly presented to her suffering sister. This was not pure mischief or unkindness on Flossie's side, but part of a treatment she had hit upon for curing Ella of her folly. And at last the worm turned. Flossie came in one day with a cheap plush and terra-cotta panel of appalling ugliness.
'For the drawing-room, dear,' she observed blandly, and Ella suddenly burst into a flood of tears.
'You are very, very unkind to me, Flossie!' she sobbed.
'I!' exclaimed Flossie, in a tone of the most innocent surprise. 'Why, Ella, I thought you would be charmed with it. I'm sure George will. And, you know, it will go beautifully with the rest of your things!'
'You might understand ... you might see——'
'I might see what?'
'How frightfully miserable I am!' said Ella, which was the very admission Miss Flossie had been seeking to provoke.
'Suppose I do see,' she said; 'suppose I've been trying to get you to act sensibly, Ella?'
'Then it's cruel of you!'
'No it's not. It's kind. How am I to help you unless you speak out? I'm younger than you, Ella, but I know this—I would never mope and make myself miserable when a word would put everything right!'