nparalleled in her experience. With
a sigh, she drew down the counterpane, only to discover, with actual
horror, the bare mattress underneath. The bed had not been made!

Such was Elsie Marley's consternation that had she been a person of
resource, she would have dressed and left the house at once; but if she
possessed any such quality, it was wholly undeveloped. As it was,
however, she said to herself she could not even stay for breakfast.
She would go at daybreak!

CHAPTER VII

Kate came to the door next morning just as Elsie had finished dressing,
and, being admitted, asked if Miss Moss wouldn't come down and pour her
uncle's coffee and eat breakfast with him.

"He's sort o' hangin' off as if, perhaps, he was hopin' you might," she
added, eying the girl admiringly.

Elsie's purpose to go immediately had been with her as she awoke, but
it didn't seem worth while to hold out at the moment: possibly she
might have a favorable opportunity to explain at the table.

But she resented Kate's beaming face, and looked reproachfully toward
the bed, which told its own shocking story of having no linen nor
blankets. Still Kate was oblivious. Elsie really hardly knew how to
complain, but perhaps to learn that is easier than to learn to praise;
and there was a certain amount of indignation in her voice as she told
how she had been obliged to sleep on the couch in her dressing-gown.

Kate was quite as shocked as the mistress of a well-regulated household
would have been. As she accompanied Elsie down-stairs she was voluble
in her sympathy, and promised all sorts of improvements for a future
Elsie knew was not to be hers. And yet the girl, who had always been
on the most distant terms with her grandmother's servants who had been
in the house for years, found herself confessing to this good-natured
slattern that she had nevertheless slept soundly and felt refreshed.

Breakfast was so pleasant as to cause visions of an unlocked trunk to
float through Elsie's mind. The dining-room was yet more attractive
with the morning sun on the garden. Mrs. Middleton did not appear.
The girl found a curious pleasure in pouring out the coffee, which was
curiously intensified when Mr. Middleton asked for three lumps of
sugar. And when he passed his cup the second time she was elated.

While he seemed fully to appreciate the novelty of her company, he
seemed also to take it for granted, as if they were to go on so,
breakfastin