“I would rather hear the birds,” Miss Merivale said gently; but she gave Rosie another anxious look. She was wondering if the time had gone as quickly with her as with Pauline. Rose did not speak. She was waiting till they got home to pour her heart out to her aunt. She could not speak before Pauline. “I am afraid I haven’t many rustic tastes,” Pauline said in a cool, superior voice. “But it is certainly lovely here. What a delightful change it must be for that little Miss Sampson! I hear you find her very useful, Miss Merivale. Clare will be pleased to hear it.” For the first time in her life Pauline saw Miss Merivale look angry. Her mild blue eyes actually flashed as she answered in a voice that trembled a little, “I don’t think you can have heard that Rhoda is related to us, Miss Smythe. She is staying with me as my visitor. Rose, my dear, I want you to be very good to her.” Pauline stole a look at Rose, expecting to see a cloud of jealousy on her pretty face; but she saw instead a tender, happy smile lurking in the corners of her lips. She was distinctly mystified. “Yes, I remember now that Rose spoke of some distant family connection,” she said carelessly to Miss Merivale. “How very good of you to acknowledge it, dear Miss Merivale! Some people wouldn’t, I know. They think poor relations should be kept out of sight as much as possible. But Miss Sampson is hardly to be called a relation, is she? I forget the exact link between you, though Rose told me.” “She is related to poor Cousin Lydia’s second husband,” Rose said, as Miss Merivale did not answer. “He and his little girl were lost in the bush, weren’t they, Aunt Lucy?” “Yes, dear,” said Miss Merivale in a low voice. Her face had become very white. “If she had lived, we might never have come to Woodcote,” Rose went on, her glance resting lovingly on the old house, which had just come into sight. “How strange it seems to think of that! How old was she, Aunt Lucy? It is only lately I have thought of her at all.” “She was about two years old, dear,” Miss Merivale answered in the same low voice. Pauline, who was watching her in some wonder, could see that she was profoundly agitated. “Then she would have been about twenty now,” Rose went on, not noticing her aunt’s disinclination to talk of her niece. “How old is Miss Sampson, Aunt Lucy? I wonder if they ever saw each other.” “She is nearly twenty; I remember Clare telling me so,” said Pauline, answering for Miss Merivale. “But she looks much older. It is the kind of life she has lived, I suppose.” Rose was intent on turning the curve of the drive in a masterly manner, and did not answer this. And Pauline, after another glance at Miss Merivale’s face, was silent about Rhoda. It was plain to her that, for some reason or another, the subject was intensely painful to Miss Merivale.