"To change the subject, girls," she began, after a moment, devoting herself energetically to the threading of her needle, and tossing her head impatiently at every unsuccessful effort; "have you heard the news? Helen's friend, Miss Stuart, is coming down upon us for a visit." "Yes, indeed we have." Emily's sigh came from the depths of her heart. "I can't imagine what we will do with another girl here." "What she will do with us may be more to the point," and Jean raised her eyebrows expressively. "I don't know how it is, but I am apprehensive about this visit. I suppose," with a sort of honest protest in her voice, "that I have never really liked Miss Stuart." "Nor I," agreed Nathalie. "There is something about her that I do not trust. And the worst of it is," with a grimace, "that she winds Helen around her little finger. It always makes me so angry." "Nonsense, Nat. You do Helen an injustice," objected Eleanor pleasantly. "However, I frankly confess to a fear that the harmony of our own little circle will be somewhat marred by the advent of a stranger." "That's so, and then you know she is such a swell that she will probably look down upon us poor country girls with the utmost scorn," and Nathalie gave a vindictive tug at her knotted thread. "Of course she is devoted to men?" queried Emily lugubriously. "Oh, I should judge so, although I have never seen her with them. You know she has only stopped with us in the winter season, when we have been alone." "Let us do her the justice to suppose that the men are equally devoted to her," added Jean generously. "It amounts to about the same thing, whether she is devoted to men, or they to her," and there was in Emily's tone such a note of tragic melancholy that the girls could not refrain from laughing. "Oh, what a happy nook and cranny of the great world this dear old Hetherford is," cried Eleanor, clasping her hands behind her head, and looking out with dreamy eyes over the sweep of softly undulating lawn that stretched away toward the manor gates. "It all seems so idyllic to me. There is so much petty jealousy and miserable heartburning beyond the confines of this little haven of rest. People's motives are so often selfish that one grows strangely doubting, even of one's friends. Do you know," leaning forward impulsively and speaking with deeper earnestness, "I think we girls have found the secret of true friendship--mutual trust and respect. These are what have made our long intercourse such a happy one." "Indeed you are right, Eleanor, dear," Jean replied gently. "The bother of it all will be," interrupted Nathalie following out her own train of thought "that Mademoiselle will come here with trunks full of fine clothes, and we will be obliged to dress up." "I would like to see the girl who could make me discard my shirt and blazer," laughed Nan defiantly. "How would we look _en grande toilette_ with such hands as these," said Jean, thrusting forward her own little brown ones.