"Is the drawing-room not big enough for you? What do you want a sitting room for? You should be glad enough to have a good warm room; let it be, I am not going to have the house upset by you or any one else." "But we want a place where we can work and not mind making a litter," urged Grace, "and we can do it ourselves." "Leave it alone," he said, gruffly, and he walked out of the room. Grace made a gesture of despair. "Here will be a more difficult task than I thought," she said, pathetically, to her sister. "Is it not hard that I should have so much trouble at the very beginning?" "It is hard, darling," said Margaret, gently, "but you will get all you want soon; you know every one does what you like at last; you must just make him do it after a bit, when you know him better." Grace's next effort was in the direction of the cook; she was determined to bring about a great improvement in her performances. Had she not attended a whole series of cookery classes, and learned how to ice cakes, and many other useful things? With great dignity she rang the drawing-room bell, and when Robert appeared she said, "Send the cook to me." Robert grinned from ear to ear, and came back again in a very few minutes. "Cook's busy and cannot come." He stood and looked at her. Grace made no answer. "I am to take any message," he said, longing to raise some little disturbance. "If she does not choose to come for orders I shall give none," she said after a moment with a visible accession to her dignity, and Robert reluctantly departed. The sisters began unpacking their things, and Grace's spirits rose when they had made their room more like the only home they had ever known. That evening, when dinner was over, Grace began upon the subject of her duties to Mr. Sandford. "I do not want to lead a useless life," she began, having well thought over her speech beforehand, but finding it terribly difficult to say it to him now, while his grey eyes, keen, hard, and cold, looked at her unflinchingly, "I want to be useful." "Indeed?" "Yes," she said, gaining more courage, "I intend taking a great deal of trouble and getting things right, and being really useful, I do not intend to eat the bread of idleness." "Are you thinking of being a governess?" A cold-water douche would hardly have been a greater shock to her. "I meant I wanted to be useful here." "Oh! You wanted to be useful. In what way?" Poor Grace! "I thought you would like me to order dinner, and--look after things." "Have you had any experience? I thought you had always been at school. Did you order the dinners there?" There was something almost insolent in his tone, and Grace through all the thick skin of her self-love, which generally prevented her seeing or feeling any intended slight, winced. She rallied her courage, however, and said, "As we are with you and it is usual for a lady to be the mistress of the house, I thought...."