with says the
draught is excellent."

"But it stands out, and takes up room; and people never keep the
carpet clean behind it!" said Mrs. Argenter.

"I'll take care of that," said Sylvie. "It is my business. We
couldn't have these rooms, you see, except just as I have agreed for
them; and you know I like making things nice myself in the morning."

Desire had delicately withdrawn by this time; and presently coming
back with a cup of tea upon a little tray, which refreshment she was
sure Mrs. Argenter would need at once after her journey, she found
the lady sitting quite serenely in the low cushioned chair before
the obnoxious grate, in which Sylvie had kindled the lump of cannel
that lay all ready for the match, in a folded newspaper, with three
little pitch-pine sticks.

There was something so dainty and compact about it, and the bright
blaze answered so speedily to the communicating touch, the black
layers falling away from each other in rich, bituminous flakiness,
and letting the fire-tongues through, that she looked on in the
happy complacence with which idle or disabled persons always enjoy
something that does itself, yet can be followed in the doing with a
certain passive sense of participancy.

In the same manner she watched Sylvie putting away wraps, unlocking
trunks, laying forth dressing-gowns and night-clothes, and setting
out toilet cases upon table and stand.

For the gray parlor contained now, for Mrs. Argenter's use, a
pretty, low, curtained French bed, and the other appliances of a
sleeping-room. A bedroom adjoining, which had been Mrs. Froke's, was
to be Sylvie's; and this had a further communication directly with
the kitchen, which would be just the thing for Sylvie's quiet
flittings to and fro in the fulfillment of her gladly undertaken
duties. All Mrs. Argenter knew about it was that she should be able
to have her hot water promptly in the mornings, without being
intruded upon.

Sylvie had insisted upon Desire's receiving the seven dollars a week
which she was still able to pay for her mother's board. Nobody had
told her of Miss Ledwith's very large wealth, and it would have made
no difference if she had known it, except the exciting in her of a
quick question why they had been taken in at all, and whether she
were not indeed being in her turn benevolently practised upon, as
she with much compunction practised upon her mother.

"I know very well that I could not earn, beyond my own board, m