taken more than a fit of sulks on Frieda's part to have quenched
Hannah's joy in life that day, however, and she rattled on of the
pleasures coming, scarcely noticing Frieda's failure to respond.

"Winsted!"

Hannah was out of the car almost before it stopped. Frieda, delayed by
other passengers who pushed in ahead of her, saw the rapturous meeting
between her own Hannah and a tall sweet-faced girl with red-gold hair,
whose beauty she was obliged to admit, though she did so gloomily. "I
hoped she would be homely," she growled to herself as she stepped down
to the platform, and suffered Catherine to kiss her cheek.

"Let's walk," suggested Catherine. "It's much too beautiful a day to be
cooped in a bus. I'll have your bags sent up. O, Hannah, my darling,
I've been waiting ages for you! And for you, too, Frieda," she added
shyly.

But Frieda was regarding the wrinkled pleats in her dress, and was
conscious that her hair was still wet with milk; therefore she only
mumbled something and stalked along beside the others who, in their
delight at seeing each other, quickly forgot her, and chattered away in
English, with many little bursts of laughter.

Dr. Helen was out when they reached the pretty house on the hillside.
Catherine led Frieda to the big rose guest-chamber, and then carried
Hannah off across the wide hall to her own room and the little
dressing-room opening from it, which Hannah had occupied on her first
visit a year and a half before. The trunks arrived at once, and Hannah
immediately began to unpack, Catherine sitting on the edge of the bed
and exclaiming over every new frock as it came out. Frieda, left alone,
because she had only partly understood the invitation the others gave
her to join them, and had wilfully refused the part she had understood,
was wretched indeed. She sat stiffly on a straight mahogany chair, and
wished with all her might that she had never been born, or at least, if
that mistake had been inevitable, that she had never left her native
land.

Suddenly there came a quick tap at the door and Hannah, not waiting for
a "Come," ran in and tossed a parcel into her lap.

"What? Aren't you dressed yet? Do hurry. Karl asked me to give you this
as soon as we got here. Did Catherine show you your bath-room? You have
one all to yourself; isn't that lovely? It's the most beautiful house,
anyway. O, what dear roses on the dressing-table! Wasn't it just like
Catherine to put them there? Hurry