her childishness and impetuous honesty. She slipped her arm into her
cousin's, and took her off to her room at once.

"I am so glad you have come!" she exclaimed. "I have been longing to
see you for years and years. Mamma has been talking so much about your
cleverness and my stupidity that just at the last I felt quite in a
fright lest you should be too dreadfully 'blue.' I looked out of the
drawing room window for you, and if you had been very forbidding I
should have received you in state in the drawing room, but you were so
charmingly pretty that I was obliged to rush down headlong to meet you."

Erica laughed and blushed, not being used to such broad compliments. In
the meantime, they had traversed several flights of stairs, and Rose,
opening a door, showed her into a spacious bedroom, most luxuriously
fitted up.

"This great big room for me!" exclaimed Erica.

"It isn't at all ghostly," said Rose, reassuringly. "Will you be afraid
if you have a night light?"

Erica laughed at the idea of being afraid; she was merely amused to
think of herself established in such a palatial bedroom, such a contrast
to the little book-lined room at home. There was a dainty little book
case here, however, with some beautifully bound books, and in another
minute she was delightedly scanning their titles, and, with a joyous
exclamation, had caught up Browning's "Christmas-eve and Easter-day,"
when a sound of dismay from her cousin made her laughingly put it down
again.

"Oh, dear me!" said Rose, in a despairing voice, "I am afraid, after
all, you are dreadfully blue. Fancy snatching up a Browning like that!"

Erica began to unlock her trunk.

"Do you want your things out?" said Rose. "I'll ring for Gemma; she'll
unpack for you."

"Oh, thank you," said Erica, "I would much rather do it myself."

"But it is nearly dinner time, we are dining early this evening, and you
will want Gemma to help you to dress."

"Oh, no," said Erica, laughing, "I never had a maid in my life."

"How funny," said Rose, "I shouldn't know what to do without one. Gemma
does everything for me, at least everything that Elspeth will let her."

"Is she Italian?" asked Erica.

"Oh, no, her name is really Jemima; but that was quite too dreadfully
ugly, you know, and she is such a pretty girl."

She chattered on while Erica unpacked and put on her white serge, then
they went down to the drawing room where Erica was introduced to her
host, a small elderl