Kate to pass in ahead of her.

The bedroom that had been assigned to her was exquisitely lovely. It was a little room of beautiful proportions facing the “grounds.” So much care had been spent on its decorations and furnishings that one never thought of all the money that had been spent with the care. Its three long windows, their sills almost on the floor, opened out on to a flowery balcony hung above the garden. The windows were wide open now because of the heat and stood back against the walls like doors. The finest of spiderweb lace was gathered against the panes, and at their sides hung opal-coloured curtains of very soft silk. The same colour, in heavier silk, was used in the spread for the narrow ivory bed, with its painted crimson ramblers at footboard and top. There was a low reading table by the bed and in the centre of it a little crystal lamp with an opal shade. Across from the bed and table stood an ivory dressing table reflecting the balcony’s brilliant plants in its three hinged mirrors. An ivory-coloured chair with a low back and three legs was placed before the dressing table. On one creamy wall hung LePage’s “Joan of Arc,” and on the opposite wall a painting of a little girl with streaming hair leaping across a bright flower bed. Through a door with long crystal mirrors panelled into either side Kate glimpsed a white bathroom with a huge porcelain tub with shining taps and a rack hung thick with wide, creamy towels.

“What a heavenly room!” she exclaimed, enraptured. “Is it mine?”

“Yes, this is your bedroom.” Bertha spoke almost deprecatingly of it. “But there is a sitting-room just across the hall. It is Miss Elsie’s, but while you are here Miss Frazier says you are to share it. That is much more comfortable.”

Kate went directly to a window, hoping to find the orchard house in its view. She was not disappointed. Beyond lawns and flower gardens there was the old orchard with its gnarled, twisted trees, and back among the trees the outlines of a little gray house. Kate was quite moved by this her first glimpse of her mother’s home.

Bertha came up behind, and now was engaged in unbuttoning her cape for her and taking off her hat. But Kate was almost unconscious of these ministrations. She was unconscious, too, when Bertha turned to unpacking her bag.

“There won’t be time for you to change to-night, Miss Frazier said,” Bertha was informing her. “So we’ll just wash you up a bit and brush your hair. Miss Frazier said you were to go down directly, and 

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