"No; I wanted to ask you about it. Ernestine is out of danger, and yet, if mama knows she is found and so ill, it will make her sick with anxiety and waiting, so I thought we had better wait until she is able to be taken home, then write." "Just so, exactly; you're right, no doubt. I hope the dear child can be moved to-morrow, for this place is like a musty chicken coop; I wouldn't put my worst enemy's dog in such a room, and I think I'll go down and blow off my feelings by telling the man who runs this shanty, just what I think of him;" and away went the excited old gentleman in a hurry, after telling Olive once more to spare no expense, if the dear child wanted anything. The next day Ernestine was taken to Congreve Hall. How many times had the girls thought of Ernestine, with her beauty, her grace, and queenly little airs, as being in Congreve Hall. How they had imagined her ornamenting its stately rooms, sweeping through the great halls, and queening it to her happy heart's content, a fit inmate to its splendor. Now, on a bed, that could be lifted from the carriage, by two careful servants, and slowly taken in at the great entrance, wan, wasted, and helpless, Ernestine was going into Congreve Hall at last. CHAPTER XIX. COMING HOME. "We haven't had a letter from Olive this week," said Bea, breaking a silence that had fallen upon them, as they sat sewing in the cheerful sitting-room. "How long she has been gone! Isn't it most time for her to be coming home, mama?" "She was to stay as long as she was enjoying herself, and pleasing Uncle Ridley," answered Mrs. Dering. "I hardly thought she would stay so long on account of her studies, but from what she writes about the scenery and gallery of pictures at Congreve, I suppose she is having a little artistic revelry that is very pleasant." "Well, she has forever lost place in my eyes," said Kat severely, "for not snubbing that chap. 'Cousin Roger,' she calls him! Stuff! He's no more our cousin than I'm your uncle; and he's to own the Hall, when it ought to be ours. I should think his conscience would wear a hole right through him, and if she brings that picture of his head home with her, I'll jab the carving-fork into it, sure's the world!" "It would make you feel better, I've no doubt," remarked Kittie, who sat by the window stitching ruffles, with a lady-like air, while a great bouquet ornamented the sill, shedding its fragrance through the room; it having been brought that morning by the polite colored man from Raymond's, with a tiny, three-cornered card, fastened to a rose-bud, and reading: "FOR MISS KITTIE, FROM PANSY," in crazy-looking capitals. "Well, I don't see how she can," said Kat, "be so polite to a fellow who is paddling about in our canoe, while we flounder in the water, and get along the best we can. I think it's too mean."