"And since when have you made the discovery? What has happened to convince you so suddenly that your professional life is a degradation?"
"Oh," she said, carelessly, "I was scarcely thinking of myself. Of course I know what lies before me. It was about Carry I spoke to you."
"Carry shall decide for herself, as you did; and when she has done so, I hope she won't come and blame me the first time she gets some ridiculous idea into her head."
"Now, papa, that isn't fair," the eldest sister said, in a gentler voice. "You know I never blamed you. I only showed you that even a popular actress sometimes remembers that she is a woman. And if she is a woman, you must let her have a grumble occasionally."
This conciliatory tone smoothed the matter down at once; and Mr. White turned to his book with another recommendation to his daughter to take some supper and get to bed.
"I will go now," she said, rather wearily, as she rose. "Good-night, papa—What is that?"
She was looking at a parcel that lay on a chair.
"It came for you, to-night. There was seven and sixpence to pay for extra carriage—it seems to have been forwarded from place to place."
"As if I had not enough luggage to carry about with me!" she said.
But she proceeded to open the parcel all the same, which seemed to be very carefully swathed in repeated covers of canvas. And presently she uttered a slight exclamation. She took up one dark object after another, passing her hand over them, and back again, and finally pressing them to her cheek.