“You know my cousin Irene Burdick—your second cousin, just as I am—but no relation to that great-grandmother who married Sandy McPherson. You never liked her very well, but I do. She is so much cleverer than I am and used to help me so much in school, and is so nice to me every way. I persuaded Aunt Mary to let her join us in Europe for six months, and you don’t know how much the travel did for her. She might have royal blood the way she carried herself,—and was mistaken for a titled lady once or twice. She is now in her own home in Claremont—that poky, stuffy home—and is very unhappy—and why shouldn’t she be? I spent a week there once, and nearly went crazy with homesickness—factories, and factory hands—and ceilings so low I nearly bumped my head, and I am not tall. Irene, who is tall, had to stoop in her chamber. I am very sorry for her. Think of Claremont after Paris, will you?” (“Don’t you know Irene makes a tool of you for her own purposes?” Tom growled, and read on:) “Now this is my plan. I am going to change places with Irene. Aunt Mary has heard that Mr. Travers is to visit Colin McPherson in Oakfield, if he is not there now—going, perhaps, to spy out the goodly inheritance which may be his, and I mean to go there too!” (“To Colin McPherson’s! Great Scott! Rena mustn’t do that! I won’t allow it!” Tom exclaimed; but Rena’s next sentence enlightened him as to her meaning:) “Quite providentially I saw an ad. in a paper, saying that a Mrs. Parks in Oakfield would take a few summer boarders, and the description of her big old house was so alluring that I said at once ‘I’ll go there.’ I am not supposed to know that his excellency is to be in town. I go for quiet and rest. I am tired of Saratoga and Newport and all those places Aunt Mary likes so much, and then I spent such a lot in Europe that I must retrench, and Oakfield is the very place in which to do it. Aunt Mary is willing. I think she wants me to meet Mr. Travers, hoping I will marry him, but I won’t! So you see it is all right. I shall take Irene with me and let her pass as the head of the firm. She will be Miss Burdick, and I just Rena, a poor relation, if you please. She is older and so much taller than I am and handsomer and grander looking every way that people will naturally think her the girl intended for Mr. Travers if they have heard of the will, as I dare say they have. I shall not say so, of course. I would not tell a lie for anything; you know I would not. I shall hold my tongue, and let Irene take the lead, and if any one is rude enough to ask which is which I shall be rude enough to say ‘That is for you to find out.’ Mr. Travers, of course, will not ask. If he does, we shall wriggle out somehow, or Irene will. I can trust her. I am really getting greatly interested in the matter. It will be such fun to watch Mr. Travers thinking Irene is the one he must marry. When he finds his mistake, if he does, I shall rise to the occasion and make it all