Kate was very glad of her own cool, clear little room. She liked it better than all that colour and ease across the hall. And in any case she would never be able to share that other room with Elsie. She determined not to go into it at all—no, not even to look over the books!

“Miss Elsie is in the sitting-room,” she told Bertha. “She said to tell you that when you were ready she would go to bed. I don’t need any help, truly.”

“Sha’n’t I even brush your hair, Miss Kate? That is so restful.”

“You’ve unpacked for me. Thank you very much. My short hair doesn’t need much brushing.”

So, reluctantly, for Miss Frazier had requested her to attend to both girls equally, Bertha took her dismissal. In a minute Kate heard voices on the other side of Elsie’s door. Then Elsie opened the door and looked in through the bathroom.

“Aunt Katherine says we’re to leave these doors open,” she informed Kate, calmly. “That is so you won’t be lonely.”

Kate nodded an “all right.” But to herself she said, “I’d be a heap less lonely if you’d close the door and I’d never see your face again.”

She undressed well out of sight of Elsie’s room. When she was in nightgown, dressing robe, and slippers, she sat down on the three-legged ivory stool, before the hinged mirrors, brush in hand. She was surprised by the expression of her own face as it looked back at her grimly out of the glass. All its humour, its charm, was gone. She was just a rather plain young girl. And as she looked at this disenchanted reflection it suddenly went misty and blurred. She saw tears rising in its eyes.

With an angry hand she dashed them away and stuck out her tongue at the blurred face in the mirror. Then came her own laugh, the eyes crinkling to slits, the mouth freed from its set lines and lifting wings in a smile.

“Idiot,” she whispered. “To cry about her! She’s a stuck-up little pig, but you needn’t become a grouchy glum just for that. Be yourself in spite of her.”

But as she went toward the windows to push them a little farther back, for the night was a warm and beautiful one, she turned her head and looked through the open doors into Elsie’s room. Elsie was sitting before her own dressing table, a replica of Kate’s. She was in an exquisitely soft-looking pink dressing gown edged about the neck and the long flowing sleeves with swansdown. Bertha 

 Prev. P 37/161 next