"Never mind, if you're pleased, I don't care what I'm called," Clodagh interrupted. "If only," she added, with a little sigh, "if only I can learn about the luggage, the packing and unpacking and not losing things." She opened the door as she spoke for her cousin to pass out, and for the first time, as she stood there, the colour of excitement in her face and the sparkle in her eyes, it struck Paulina that the "child," as she called her with half-contemptuous affection, was fast becoming a very pretty creature, and with this came a sudden flash of self-reproach, for there was nothing consciously selfish or small-minded about the elder girl, spoilt and self-willed and autocratic as she was. She stopped short with a gesture of horror. "What have I been thinking of?" she exclaimed, "and you yourself, Clodagh? You're not dressed--you've not begun to dress, and the dinner-hour already or almost. Why didn't you remind me that you had to get ready too?" Clodagh smiled. "I really don't think it matters," she said. "I haven't got a proper grown-up gown to begin with, and really there wasn't time to get out my things too. I'm sure Mrs. Marriston will understand, and I daresay I can have a little dinner sent up to me, if you----" But she stopped short, for just then Annot came running along the passage towards them. "Can I----?" she was beginning, when, glancing at them and the confusion of boxes and bags lying about, she saw that there was something the matter. Paulina rapidly explained, and "Need I come down?" pleaded Clodagh. "If she doesn't," persisted her cousin, "it will put everything wrong. It will look as if--as if--you know, Annot, I want her to be considered a sort of younger sister of mine. We _are_ near relations. Clodagh, you don't want me to seem selfish and unkind." Miss Annot considered. "After all," she said, "Clodagh--may I call you so?--is scarcely grown-up, and being in mourning too. If you just arrange your hair a little, though really it does not look bad--it is so bright and wavy--and--let me see, I can lend you a pretty simple fichu--over your plain black bodice it will look rather well. Come with me--my room is close at hand." And in two or three minutes they returned to where Paulina was anxiously awaiting them--Clodagh looking quite fresh and sweet in the half Puritan-like garb, with a bow of black velvet in her hair and a bunch of violets as a breast-knot. "Yes," thought her cousin, "she's going to be quite a beauty. I must get her some proper clothes, but"--as her eye fell on the confused pile of their possessions beside her--"I don't know how ever she will manage all this, and yet I can't go about with a maid as well! I do hope for her sake as well as my own that I haven't been rash in this plan." But she smiled pleasantly enough as she thanked Annot for her kind offices, and then the three made their way downstairs together.