My aunt called Grace to take me up to my room, kissed me good-night, and said she hoped I would be comfortable. Grace, who had just established herself at her embroidery, pouted slightly, and said in French (a language with which, it seemed taken for granted, I was unacquainted), "Why can't Josephine?" rising slowly to obey, nevertheless. A few sharp words silenced her speedily; another silvery good-night to me, and I followed my cousin upstairs. A more cat-in-a-strange-garrety, uncomfortable, bewildered feeling I never before had experienced; from Mr. Rutledge down, they all seemed to treat me as if I were somebody else. "If I be I, as I do hope I be," I ejaculated, with a miserable attempt at a laugh, as the old nursery rhyme came into my head, "perhaps I shall know myself when I am left alone and have time to think." But Grace did not seem inclined to allow me that luxury; for, having conducted me to my room, she came in, and did the honors rather more graciously than I had expected, lit the gas, pulled down the shades, put my bonnet and cloak away in the wardrobe, and then sat down on the foot of the bed, and looked at me with great appearance of interest. The fact was, Grace possessed, in no ordinary degree, that truly womanly trait, curiosity; and justly considered, that as she had been made to come upstairs against her will, it was but fair that she should compensate herself in any lawful way that presented, and now that she was up here, to see as much as she could of the manners and habits of the new comer. With a view to this harmless little entertainment, she began her investigations by saying: "Where's the rest of your baggage? In the closet?" (She was leaning over the balusters when my trunk was brought up, and knew, as well as I did, that there was only one.) "No," I said, blushing, "I didn't have but that trunk." Grace squeezed up her mouth a little, but didn't make any rejoinder. "Do you like your room?" she asked, after a minute. As I had just been contrasting it mentally with the blue room at Rutledge, I could not help another blush, and a little confusion, as I replied that it did very well. "Mamma seemed to have an idea that you were quite a little girl," she continued, "and that this was very nice for you. It opens out of the nursery, you see, and if you don't mind Esther's squalling, it _is_ very nice." She laughed a little, and I tried to smile as I answered that I liked children, and should not mind being near my little cousin. "I hope you'll like Esther," said Grace, with a shrug of her shoulders. "When she isn't kicking Félicie, or howling to be taken out, or squalling after mamma, she's sitting on the floor in the sulks, and as that's the least troublesome of her moods, nobody interferes with her. Oh, she's a sweet child!"