“Beauty is as you find it,” said Mariuccia. “_Carina_, no one will ever be so pretty as our own signorina to Domenico and me.--What is the child doing? She is pulling the things off her own bed.--My angel, you have lost your good sense. You are fluttered and upset by this new arrival. The blue room will be very good for the new young lady. Perhaps she will not stay very long?” The wish was father to the thought. But Frances took no notice of the suggestion. She said briskly, going on with what she was doing, “She must have my room, Mariuccia. The blue room is _quite_ nice; it will do very well for me; but I should like her to feel at home, not to think our house was bare and cold. The blue room would be rather naked, if we were to put her there to-night. It will not be naked for me, for, of course, I am used to it all, and know everything. But when Constance wakes to-morrow morning and looks round her, and wonders where she is--oh, how strange it all seems!--I wish her to open her eyes upon things that are pretty, and to say to herself, ‘What a delightful house papa has! What a nice room! I feel as if I had been here all my life.’” “Constanza--is that her name? It is rather a common name--not distinguished, like our signorina’s. But it is very good for her, I have no doubt. And so you will give her your own room, that she may be fond of the house, and stay and supplant you? That is what will happen. The good one, the one of gold, gets pushed out of the way. I would not give her my room to make her love the house.” “I think you would, Mariuccia.” “No; I do not think so,” said Mariuccia, squaring herself with one arm akimbo. “No; I do not deny that I would probably take some new things into the blue room, and put up curtains. But I am older than you are, and I have more sense. I would not do it. If she gets your room, she will get your place; and she will please everybody, and be admired, and my angel will be put out of the way.” “I am such a horrid little wretch,” said Frances, “that I thought of that too. It was mean, oh, so mean of me. She is prettier than I am, and taller; and--yes, of course, she must be older too, so you see it is her right.” “Is she the eldest?” asked Mariuccia. Frances made a puzzled pause; but she would not let the woman divine that she did not know. “Oh yes; she must be the eldest.--Come quick, Mariuccia; take all these things to the blue room; and now for your clean linen and everything that is nice and sweet.”