“Nor shall I,” Miss Rossiter said, loftily; “I shall let her alone severely, and leave as soon as possible after her arrival. Nor shall I leave my sister’s daughters with the adventuress. I’ve been thinking it over, and have concluded to rent or buy a place in New York, and set up housekeeping for myself, in which case you will go with me, and leave your father to enjoy life with his low-born bride.” “Father wrote she was a lady, and Godfrey says we shall like her,” Emma quickly interposed, feeling that for herself she preferred staying with the “adventuress” to living with Aunt Christine. Julia, on the contrary, was caught with the house in New York. The city was far more to her taste than the dull country, and, with a withering glance at her sister, she said: “I’m ashamed of you, Em, that you cannot appreciate auntie’s offer, but speak, instead, for that woman. I, for one, am greatly obliged to auntie, and shall go with her to New York?” “And I, too, if she will have me. I’d rather live anywhere than at Uncle Calvert’s,” Alice said; “and I hope the house will be near the Park. Won’t it be nice, though?” “Yes, I mean to have it nice,” Miss Rossiter said, warming into something like enthusiasm as she thought of a home of her own. “I shall furnish it elegantly, and have a reception every week, with little _recherché_ dinner parties for our circle.” Julia began to be interested, and hoped she should see a little society before she was quite forty, while Alice resolved to be married from that house near the Park, instead of “Uncle Calvert’s poky little bandbox down on Washington Square.” And while the three ladies planned and talked of the new house in the city, each was conscious of a pang as she thought of leaving the delightful place, where was so much of comfort and luxury, with no shadow of care or trouble. And of the three, Miss Rossiter felt it the most keenly. Naturally indolent and fond of her ease, she had enjoyed her sister’s house, and hated much to leave it, but the fiat had gone forth. There was to be a new mistress at Schuyler Hill, whose name was not Rossiter, and she must go. She settled that point at once, and then said to the young girls by way of caution, for pride in her brother-in-law was still strong within her: “I think it will be better not to mention Godfrey’s letter,—that is, not to speak of the woman’s personal appearance, which may not be so bad as we fear. Let her show for herself what she is. We must tell, of course, of the expected marriage, but we need say nothing further.”