“My dear Blair, for heaven’s sake don’t let his head go. Take care, my dear, don’t let this drop.” (This to Ruth, about a package wrapped in paper.) When at length she was down on the ground, she asked Blair if her bonnet was on straight: “Because, my dear”—and Ruth could not for her life tell to whom she was speaking—“nothing characterizes a woman more than her bonnet.” Then having been assured that this mark of character was all right, she turned to Ruth, and said, with the greatest graciousness: “How do you do, my dear? You must allow me to kiss you. I am Cousin Thomasia.” Ruth’s surprised look as she greeted her, perhaps, made her add, “I am everybody’s Cousin Thomasia.” It was indeed as she said, she was everybody’s Cousin Thomasia, and before she had been in the house ten minutes, Ruth felt as if she were, at least, hers. She accepted the arm-chair offered her, with the graciousness of a queen, and spread out her faded skirts with an air which Ruth noted and forthwith determined to copy. Then she produced her knitting, and began to knit so quietly that it was almost as if the yarn and needles had appeared at her bidding. The next instant she began a search for something—began it casually, so casually that she knit between-times, but the search quickened and the knitting ceased. “Blair?——!” “You brought them with you, Cousin Thomasia.” “No, my dear, I left them, I’m sure I left them——” (searching all the time) “right on—Where can they be?” “I saw you have them in the wagon.” “Then I’ve dropped them—Oh, dear! dear! What shall I do?” “What is it?” asked Ruth. “My eyes, my dear—and I cannot read a word without them. Blair, we must go right back and hunt for them.” But Blair was up and searching, not on the floor or in the road; but in the folds of Miss Thomasia’s dress; in the wrappings of the little parcel which she still held in her lap. “Here they are, Cousin Thomasia,” she exclaimed, triumphantly drawing them out of the paper. “Right where you put them.” Miss Thomasia gave a laugh as fresh as a girl’s. “Why, so I did! How stupid of me!” She seated herself again, adjusted her glasses and began to unwrap her parcel. “Here, my dear, is a little cutting I have fetched you from a rose which my dear mother brought from Kenilworth Castle, when she accompanied my dear father to England. I was afraid you might not have any flowers now, and nothing is such a panacea for loneliness as the care of a rose-bush. I can speak from experience. The old one used to grow just over my window at my old home and I took a cutting with me when we went away—General Legaie obtained the privilege of doing so—and you have no idea how much company it has been to me. I will show you how to set it out.” The glasses were on now, and she was examining the sprig of green in the little pot with profound interest, while her needles flew. “Where was your old home?” Ruth asked, softly.