'And did you see her,' said Gwendolyn, 'when I happened to mention that our church was always shut up in the summer because so many people were out of the city? She just turned those splendid eyes of hers on me until I actually felt my moral stature shrivelling, and asked, "What about the people in the city? don't they have to go on living?"' 'She is plucky, though,' said Russell admiringly. 'Did you notice when you were both screaming because one of our wheels caught in a street car rail, and the carriage nearly upset, how she never said a word, though she must have been frightened, for we were nearly over. I like a girl that has grit enough to hold her tongue.' 'She is a dear child,' said Mr Davis, 'and she has her mother's eyes.' Upstairs, in her blue-draped chamber, Pauline spoke her verdict to herself. 'They are all splendid, and I'm a good deal prouder of my relations than they can be of me. I'm a regular woodpecker among birds of paradise. I wish I hadn't to be so dreadfully plain. Well, I'll ring true if I _am_ homely, and character is more than clothes, anyway.' She undressed slowly, her aesthetic eyes revelling in all the dainty appointments of the room which was to be her very own. Then she knelt by the broad, low window-seat, and said her prayers, looking away to the stars, which glowed red, and green, and yellow, in the soft summer sky, and then, in a great hush of delight, she lay down between the delicately-perfumed sheets, and gave herself up to the enjoyment of the present which God had given her. She would not think of Sleepy Hollow. She had put it by. _Chapter IV_ A NEW WORLD Belle entered Pauline's room to find her cousin revelling in the exquisite pathos of Whittier's _Snowbound_ before dressing for dinner. The problem of clothes had been solved by Aunt Rutha in her pleasant, tactful way. 'You are just Belle's age, my dear,' she had said the day after Pauline's arrival, as she lifted a delicately pencilled muslin from a large parcel which had been brought in from White's, and laid it against her fresh young cheek. 'That is very becoming, don't you think so, Gwen? It is such a delight for me to have two daughters to shop for. I have always had a craze to buy doubles of everything, but Gwendolyn was so much older, I could never indulge myself. There is no need to say anything, dearie,' and she kissed away the remonstrance that was forming on Pauline's lips. 'You belong to us now, you know, and your uncle thinks he owes your mother more than he can ever hope to repay.' Then she led her to the lounge which Gwendolyn was piling high with delicately embroidered and ruffled underwear.