the
quick look of pretty, childish appeal which the girl gave him. It was
Rose's first advance to all men whom she met, her little feeler put
out to determine their dispositions towards her. It was quite
involuntary. She was unconscious of it, but it was as if she said in
so many words, "Do you mean to be kind to me? Don't you like the look
of me? I mean entirely well. There is no harm in me. Please don't
dislike me."

Sylvia saw the glance and interpreted it. "She looks like her
mother," she announced, harshly. It was part of Sylvia's extreme
manners to address a guest in the third person. However, in this
case, it was in reality the clothes which had occasioned so much
formality. She immediately, after she had spoken and Henry had
awkwardly murmured his assent to her opinion, noticed how tired the
girl looked. She was a slender little thing, and looked delicate in
spite of a babyish roundness of face, which was due to bone-formation
rather than flesh.

Sylvia gave an impression of shoving the men aside as she approached
the girl. "You look tired to death," said she, and there was a sweet
tone in her force voice.

Rose brightened, and smiled at her like a pleased child. "Oh, I am
very tired!" she cried. "I must confess to being very tired, indeed.
The train was so fast. I came on the limited from New York, you know,
and the soft-coal smoke made me ill, and I couldn't eat anything,
even if there had been anything to eat which wasn't all full of
cinders. I shall be so very glad of a bath and an opportunity to
change my gown. I shall have to beg you to allow your maid to assist
me a little. My own maid got married last week, unexpectedly, and I
have not yet replaced her."

"I don't keep a hired girl," said Sylvia. She looked, as Henry had,
both angry and abashed. "I will fasten up your dress in the neck if
that is what you want," said she.

"Oh, that is all," Rose assured her, and she looked abashed, too.
Even sophistication is capable of being daunted before utterly
unknown conditions. She followed Sylvia meekly up-stairs, and Henry
and Horace carried the trunk, which had been left on the front walk,
up after them.

Leander Willard was a man of exceeding dignity. He was never willing
to carry a trunk even into a house. "If the folks that the trunk
belongs to can't heft it in after I've brought it up from the depot,
let it set out," he said. "I drive a carriage to accommodate, but I
ain't no porter."

Therefor