ripping!" exclaimed Letty; and being a practical person
at once resumed and finished her pudding.

Miss Leech, too, looked exceedingly pleased. How could she be anything
but pleased at the prospect of staying with a person who was always so
kind and thoughtful as Anna? Her feelings, somehow, were never hurt by
Anna; Lady Estcourt seemed to have a special knack of jumping on them
every time she spoke to her. She knew she ought not to have such
sensitive feelings, and felt that it was more her fault than anyone
else's if they were hurt; yet there they were, and being hurt was
painful, and living with someone so even tempered as Anna was very
peaceful and pleasant. Mr. Jessup would have liked Anna. She wished he
could have known her. A higher compliment it was not in Miss Leech's
power to pay.

And when Anna saw the pleasure on Miss Leech's face, and saw that she
thought she was to stay too, she felt that for no sister-in-law in the
world would she wipe it out with that month's notice. She decided to say
nothing, but simply to keep her as well as Letty. Her two thousand a
year was in her eyes of infinite elasticity. Never having had any money,
she had no notion of how far it would go; and she did not hesitate to
come to a decision which would probably ultimately oblige her to reduce
the number of those persons Susie described as victims.

The next day the companion arrived. Anna went out into the hall to meet
her when she heard the approaching wheels of the shepherd-plaid chariot.
She felt rather nervous as she watched her emerging from beneath the
hood, for she knew how much of the comfort and peace of the twelve would
depend on this lady. She felt exceedingly nervous when the lady,
immediately upon shaking hands, asked if she could speak to her alone.

"_Natuerlich,_" said Anna, a vague fear lest Fritz, the coachman,
should have insulted her on the way coming over her, though she only
knew Fritz as the mildest of men.

She led the way into the drawing-room. "Now what is she going to tell me
dreadful?" she thought, as she invited her to sit on the sofa, having
been instructed by Trudi that that was the place where strangers
expected to sit. "Suppose she isn't going to stay, and I shall have to
look for someone all over again? Perhaps the lining of the carriage has
been too much for her. _Bitte_" she said aloud, with an uneasy smile,
motioning Frau von Penheim towards the sofa.

The new companion was a big, elderly l