At this moment Rose came into the sitting-room to bring Grandmother Sweet a piece of fresh sponge cake, her first triumph in real cake-making under Mrs. Blossom. Miss Fifield through the partly open door of the bedroom which also served as fitting-room, regarded her neat gingham work-apron and animated, rosy face with evident approval. “Who is that young girl?” she asked. “I don’t remember to have ever seen her before.” “She is Rose Shannon,” Miss Silence answered as well as she could with her mouth full of pins. “She came to Farmdale with the idea that she could live with Aunt Maria Ames, and is staying with us for the present.” Miss Fifield prided herself on her prompt decisions, and the idea at once occurred to her that such a tidy little handmaid would be pleasant and useful to have. “If she wants to she can come to us; we will give her a home, and something besides.” Silence Blossom was measuring Miss Fifield’s bony arm for the sleeve. “I don’t know,” her voice dubious; “Rose was planning to go to school when it opened next term.” “I think we could manage for her to go afternoons; there isn’t much to do after dinner. I suppose,” she added, “that Eudora and Brother Nathan will object. They never agree on anything only in opposing me, but what I undertake I intend to carry through.” But for once Miss Fifield was mistaken, Miss Eudora heartily agreed with the plan. She could put on gloves to sweep, and cake and pastry making were something any lady might do with dignity; but dish-washing even with the aid of a mop, she viewed with horror. Furthermore, her sister refused to wash the dishes a day over half the time. Squire Nathan Fifield, the middle-aged brother who with the two middle-aged sisters made up the Fifield family, caustically remarked that he should think two able-bodied women could do the work for themselves and one man, but if they couldn’t they would have to settle the matter their own way. “Only,” he warned them, “it is very likely this is the child of low-bred foreigners, and if she turns out to be a little liar, and a thief, I want you to remember that it was you that brought her here, not me.” But the sisters, noways daunted by this foreboding, offered Rose the place and, as we have seen, she accepted the offer. CHAPTER XV AT THE FIFIELDS’ The Fifields were the oldest family in Farmdale, and lived in the most pretentious house. Rose had greatly admired the old home with its high-pillared porch set behind tall hedges of prim cedar, and a view of the interior only increased the feeling. To her eyes the claw-footed tables and tall bedsteads with canopy tops were most imposing; and the dimly lighted, seldom used parlor with its real lace curtains, its carpet laid in great wreaths of roses, its gilt-framed mirror, and its damask upholstered, mahogany furniture, was a really magnificent apartment, including as it did the family portraits, and Miss Eudora’s girlish efforts at painting on velvet.