light to shine through their velvety
blackness.

Laura took the new cousin up to her room. The house through which they
passed seemed rather a barren affair, but somehow pleasant in spite of
its dark painted floors and rag rugs and unmistakably shabby
furniture. Flowers were everywhere, doors stood open, and breezes blew
in at the windows, billowing the straight scrim curtains. The guest's
room was small and slant-ceilinged. One picture, an unframed
photograph of a big tree leaning over a brook, was tacked to the wall;
a braided rug lay on the floor; on a small table were flowers and a
book; over the queer old chest of drawers hung a small mirror; there
was no pier-glass at all. Very spotless and neat, but bare--hopelessly
bare, unless one liked that sort of thing.

There was one bit of civilization, however, that these people
appreciated--one's need of warm water. As Elliott bathed and dressed,
her spirits lightened a little. It did rather freshen a person's
outlook, on a hot day, to get clean. She even opened the book to
discover its name. "Lorna Doone." Was that the kind of thing they read
at the farm? She had always meant to read "Lorna Doone," when she had
time enough. It looked so interminably long. But there wouldn't be
much else to do up here, she reflected. Then she surveyed what she
could of herself in the dim little mirror--probably Laura would wish
to copy her style of hair-dressing--and descended, very slender and
chic, to supper.

It was a big circle which sat down at that supper-table. There was
Uncle Robert, short and jolly and full of jokes, who wished to hear
all about everybody and plied Elliott with questions. There was
another new cousin, a wiry boy called Tom, and a boy older than Henry,
who certainly wasn't a cousin, but who seemed very much one of the
family and who was introduced as Bruce Fearing. And there was
Stannard. Stannard had returned in high feather from Upton and
intercourse with a classmate whom he would doubtless have termed his
kind. Stannard was inclined for a minute or two to indulge in code
talk with Elliott. She did not encourage him and it amused her to
observe how speedily the conversation became general again, though in
quite what way it was accomplished she could not detect.

But if these new cousins' manners were above reproach, their
supper-table was far from sophisticated. No maid appeared, and
Gertrude and Tom and eight-year-old Priscilla changed the plates.
Laura