“Mr. Cortlandt designed this swimmin’ tank himself, Miss Beth. It is the most beautiful private bathroom in town, they say,” said Anna Mary. “Your cousin, Master Dirk, has a much larger swimmin’ pool, but then his is the one off the gymnasium, and it’s used for that too; the young ladies’ bath is for them alone--only now you will use it.” “How shall I ever, ever tell Aunt Rebecca so she’ll understand? I don’t understand myself,” said Beth going back to her blue room in the wake of Anna Mary in a sort of trance. “My cousins are not really young ladies, are they?” she asked arousing to what Anna Mary had said. “Miss Natalie is fifteen years old, Miss Alys is something above twelve, and Master Dirk is nearly eleven,” said Anna Mary. “Your trunk hasn’t come, Miss Beth--those baggage transfer men, you can’t be dependin’ on them! I’ll borrow a night-dress of Miss Alys’s from her maid--she’s not much bigger than you, though she is older.” Anna Mary disappeared. When she came back Beth had folded her gown over the back of a chair, and was brushing her hair with gingerly touches, born of her misgiving in using the wrought silver backed brush which she had found on her dressing table. “Oh, that will never do, Miss Beth!” cried Anna Mary, and Beth flushed deeply as she said: “I was afraid it wouldn’t, Anna Mary, but there wasn’t any other brush here. Mine will come to-morrow, won’t it?” She hastily replaced the elaborate brush on the table. “It’s not the brush I meant,” said Anna Mary appropriating it. “But you must wait to have your hair brushed. I’ll do it to-night, but after this there’ll be some one to wait on you--I don’t know whether it will be Célie, Miss Natalie and Miss Alys’s maid, or another one. But it’s not proper for you to dress your own hair. Sit there, Miss Beth, in that low chair before the dressin’ table while I brush your hair. Why, it’s very nice hair, Miss Beth!” Anna Mary added, as Beth obeyed her and she began to brush out its crinkled masses. “Now to think such fine hair should be braided till a body would no more notice it than she would a manilla rope; it’s a cryin’ shame, so it is! We’ll have your hair washed till it’s as fluffy as corn silk and as bright, and we’ll dress it suitable, Miss Beth, and you’ll see! You must have a dressin’ slip of some sort to put on when your maid’s brushin’--but Mrs. Cortlandt will look after that. Now, Miss Beth, here’s the night-dress I borrowed from Miss Alys for you. Will I help you, or will you do for yourself from this on?” “I always dress and undress myself, Anna Mary,” said Beth guessing at her meaning. “Oh, Anna Mary, you’ve brought something instead of a night-dress!” She checked herself from saying “a party dress,” but that was what she thought Anna Mary lifted from the bed and shook out, of its folds--it was a gown of soft china silk, trimmed with delicate narrow lace and tied with long white ribbons.