“Mrs. Dougal,” she said, in a clear, loud voice, and looking affectionately at the slender, black-robed figure of Lally, “I have brought home with me my great-niece, Miss Lalla Bird, who is also my adopted daughter and heiress. I desire you to consider her as your future mistress.” Mrs. Dougal bowed low to the young lady, and Mrs. Wroat continued: “Let the best room in the house be prepared for her use, Mrs. Dougal--the amber room. Ah, it is ready! Show Miss Bird to it then, and see that her trunk is sent up to her. And have luncheon ready for us in half an hour or less, Mrs. Dougal. We are nearly famished.” The housekeeper again bowed, and conducted Lally into the hall and up the broad stairs to a front chamber, one of the state apartments of the house. Here, soon after, she left the young girl to renovate her toilet, going again to her aged mistress. “This is a wonderful change for me!” murmured Lally. “I must be dreaming. So lately I slept in a barn with tramps and thieves, glad of even that shelter, and now I am housed in a palace. I am afraid I shall wake up presently to find myself in the barn. Ah, I never even dreamed of such magnificence!” She examined her surroundings with the delighted curiosity of a child. There was a fire behind the silvered bars of the low, wide grate, and its red gleams streamed out over the rich blue velvet carpet with its bordering of amber arabesques on a blue ground, and one long red spike of dancing light fell upon the amber silk curtains of the low canopied bedstead. The square pillows were covered with the daintiest of linen, frilled with real lace. The coverlet was of amber satin, embroidered with a great medallion in blue silk. The curtains were of amber satin, with blue fringe, over white lace drapery, and the couches and chairs were upholstered in amber relieved with blue. Lally observed two doors at one side of the room, and crossing the floor softly, she opened them successively. The first door opened upon a large and handsomely fitted bath-room, with marble basin and marble floor, half covered by a Turkish rug. The other door opened into a beautiful little dressing-room, furnished to match the bed-chamber. A massive armoire of carved ebony, with doors formed of plate-glass mirrors, completely covered one side of the wall, and a long swing mirror, framed in ebony, stood opposite. A gasolier depended from the middle of the ornate ceiling, and in three of the globes a mellow light was burning. “It is like fairy-land!” thought the girl. “All this for me--for me! I can hardly believe it.”