Miss Orinda smiled. “No, he’d never take a beauty prize, neither would Susan. Lauretta wasn’t a particularly pretty girl; she grew up to her looks somehow; and you may, too, for you haven’t a bad beginning, though no one could call you a prize beauty either. Lauretta is about my age, a little older in fact, but doesn’t look it. If I gaumed up my skin with creams and clays, and was forever fiddling with my hair, maybe I’d look younger, but life’s too short for me to spend it messing with my old carcass, and I haven’t an eye out for the men, so there you are.” While she was speaking Ellen was taking in her own impressions. She didn’t guess her cousin’s age; she was about forty-five, but looked older, for she used no devices for increasing her charms. She wore her dark hair straight back from her forehead, which was too high for beauty; she had somewhat small, but clear, frank gray eyes, a large nose, a straight, thin-lipped mouth, long upper lip, decided chin, was of medium height, slender, and straight. Her good points were her finely-shaped head, well set, her figure, her perfect teeth, and clear, unblemished skin. Ellen had seen the gray eyes snap and the lips compress into a hard, decided line, and concluded that some might not find it easy to get along with Cousin Orinda Crump. But then she had delivered her from that terror which had threatened,—life in a charitable institution. Tears gushed to Ellen’s eyes as she thought of this, for she was an emotional, sensitive little body. She gave a short gasping sob. “I want to kiss you,” she faltered. Miss Orinda patted her on the shoulder. “There, there, child,” she soothed, as Ellen put her arms around this deliverer from an unhappy fate. “I’m not much of a hugger, not having had anything but a cat to hug for a good many years, but if it would do you any good to kiss me, go ahead and do it, only it isn’t to become a daily habit, I warn you. We’ll get along all right if you’re a good child. You’ll turn out to be a real smart girl, I have no doubt, but I must warn you right this minute that you can’t expect either fine clothes or luxuries from me. We shall manage to get along somehow, I dare say, but I shall expect you to do your part.” “Oh, I will, I will, Cousin Orinda,” promised Ellen after giving the other a much less ardent kiss than she desired to bestow. “Everybody in this town calls me Rindy Crump, and maybe you’d better call me Cousin Rindy. What name did you go by at home?” “Mother always called me Ellen, but Daddy often called me Nelly or Nell.” “Ellen it shall be; that’s a nice sensible name. Now then, Ellen, bring your bag up-stairs, and we’ll get your room ready. We’ll send for your trunk to-morrow.”