“How can she be so easy and self-possessed, and she only a hired companion?” Alice thought, as she saw how wholly unembarrassed Edith was, even when Mrs. Rossiter swept into the room in her long trailing dress of black tissue, with her scarlet scarf around her, and a few geranium leaves in her hair. Miss Rossiter usually wore black when in full dinner dress. She knew it became her better than any other color, especially when relieved with scarlet or white, and she was handsome now as she came in with a half-eager, half-wondering look upon her face. “Ah, Christine, I am glad to see you and find you looking so well,” Col. Schuyler said, as he went hastily forward to meet her. “Let me present you to my wife. Mrs. Schuyler, this is Miss Rossiter, my sister,—or rather,—yes,—the sister of my wife; that is, I mean,—the late lamented Emily,—yes.” “That’s what I call a very remarkable introduction,” Godfrey whispered to Alice, who turned away to hide her laughter, while the faintest resemblance of a smile lurked in Edith’s eyes and about the corners of her mouth as she extended her hand to the sister of the lamented Emily! Otherwise she was perfectly collected, and did not seem to notice that only the tips of two fingers were given her, and that though the thin lips of Miss Rossiter moved, the words they uttered were wholly inaudible. Miss Rossiter had seen at a glance that the lady’s beauty was not exaggerated, but she could not feel altogether cordial toward one whom she considered an intruder, and she purposely threw as much coldness and haughtiness as possible into her manner, hoping thus to impress the stranger with a sense of the vast difference there was between the Rossiters and the Lyles. But Edith did not seem in the least affected by the lady’s hauteur, and inquiring kindly if her head was better, suggested that she sit down, as she must feel rather weak, and set the example by sitting down herself. “If she is not assuming the _rôle_ of mistress and patronizing me so soon,” was Miss Rossiter’s mental comment, and resolving not to be patronized she remained standing as straight as an arrow and almost as stiff, talking to her brother-in-law until the bell rang for dinner, and Julia and Emma came in, dressed in white and looking infinitely better than when Godfrey criticised them so severely.