So Mrs. Jerry went back to the kitchen, and Pierre, who knew the first approaches of his mistress’ moods, sat down upon the grass quietly waiting the progress of events. Reinette’s face was very white, and as was usual when she was trying to repress her feelings, her hands were locked together as she stood looking about her at the trees under which her father had played when a boy, and the honeysuckle which grew over the trellis-work and which must have blossomed for him, and more than all at his initials cut by himself on the door-post. Then with a little smothered cry she turned suddenly, and ran up stairs to the room which she had heard described so often, and which at a glance she knew was hers. CHAPTER X. THE TWO REINETTES. “Oh, how lovely it is!” she cried, as she entered the room and took it all in as rapidly as Phil himself could have done. “What perfect taste Mr. Beresford must have!” she continued. “It is just as I would have it, except the blue ribbons, which do not suit my black face. But I can soon change them, and then everything will be faultless; and—oh—oh—the cats!” she screamed, as she caught sight of Mrs. Speckle, who, with her three children, was purring contentedly in the cushioned arm-chair by the window. “_Cats!_ and I love them so much; he has remembered everything!” and bounding across the floor, Reinette knelt by the chair and buried her face in the soft fur of the kittens, who, true to their feline instincts, recognized in her a friend, and began at once to pat her neck and ears with their velvety paws, while Mrs. Speckle, feeling a little crowded, vacated the chair and seated herself upon the window-stool, where Phil saw her when he rode by. The sight of the cats carried Reinette back to the day when her father had written his directions to Mr. Beresford and she had made suggestions. How careful he had been to remember all her likes and dislikes, and how pale and tired he had looked after the letter was finished, and how unjust and thoughtless she had been to feel aggrieved because he said he was not able to drive with her in the Bois de Boulogne after dinner was over. And now he was dead, and she was alone in a strange new world, with only Mr. Beresford for a friend, unless it were _those people_ who claimed her for a relative—_those people_ of whom she had never heard, and against whom she rebelled with all the strong force of her imperious nature. She had not had time to consider the matter seriously; but now, alone in her own room, with the doors shut between her and the outside world, it rose before her in all its magnitude, and for a time drove every other feeling from her. The proud aristocratic part of her nature was in the ascendant, and battled fiercely against her better self.