Countess could have seen you when Dick and I arrived today."

Eugenia was not wearing her nurse's uniform. Instead, she had fished an old gray crepon dress out of her trunk. But in order to make it more attractive for her little guests, she wore a white fichu about her neck. Then her hair was wound in two heavy braids around her head.

"There isn't any particular reason why[Pg 78] I should deny being an old maid," she returned. "Only I am sorry that you girls discussed my appearance with a stranger."

[Pg 78]

Again Barbara flushed. "The Countess isn't a stranger to us, Gene," she apologized, "and I don't think you should feel that way toward her since you and Captain Castaigne have grown to be good friends. I don't see how you can still consider him unattractive. But you are terribly prejudiced, Eugenia."

The two girls had left Eugenia's bedroom and were now walking toward the back stairs.

All of a sudden, when Eugenia chanced to be unconscious of her companion, Barbara moved away. She at once placed her hand on the knob of a door leading into a room at the back of the house.

"Whose room is this, Eugenia? May I go inside and see?" she queried.

Her hand was upon the knob, but, of course, she made no effort to enter the room, awaiting the other girl's reply. She was interested merely because this seemed[Pg 79] to be about the only room that Eugenia had not exhibited.

[Pg 79]

But Eugenia immediately looked unaccountably angry. Yet she had kept her temper perfectly through all Barbara's annoying speeches!

"Please don't attempt to go in that room, Barbara!" she ordered sharply, quite in the manner and temper of the former Eugenia. "If I had desired you to see the room I should have taken you into it myself."

"Oh, I beg your pardon," Barbara replied, angry with herself for the sudden lump that had risen in her throat. "I suppose this room is Bluebeard's chamber, or the place where you keep your ghost locked up. I did not mean to interfere."

"The room is not locked and is entirely empty," Eugenia replied. However, she must have parted with her New England conscience at the moment of making this statement. For Barbara had distinctly heard some one moving about inside the 

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