“I’ll tell her the truth,” was his rapid decision, and assuming a manner which warned the servant who answered his ring neither to be curious nor impertinent, he conducted his charge into the parlor, and bringing her a chair before the grate, went in quest of his mother, who he found was out. “Kindle a fire then in the front guest-chamber,” he said, “and see that it is made comfortable as soon as possible.” The servant bowed in acquiescence, wondering _who_ had come, and feeling not a little surprised at the description given by John of the woman he had let into the house, and who now in the parlor was looking around her in astonishment and delight, condemning herself for the feeling of homesickness with which she remembered the Bowery, and contrasting her “cluttered quarters” there with the elegance around her. “Was Katy’s house as fine as this?” she asked herself, feeling intuitively that such as she might be out of place in it, just as she began to fear she was out of her place here, bemoaning the fact that she had forgotten her _cap-box_, with its contents, and so could not remove her bonnet, as she had nothing with which to cover her gray head. “What shall I do?” she was asking herself, when Mark appeared, explaining that his mother was absent, but would be at home in a short time. “Your room will soon be ready,” he continued, “and meantime you might lay aside your wrappings here if you find them too warm.” There was something about Mark Ray which inspired confidence, and in her extremity Aunt Betsy gasped, “I can’t take off my bunnet till I get my caps, down to Mr. Tubbses. Oh, what a trouble I be.” Not exactly comprehending the nature of the difficulty, Mark suggested that she go without a cap until he could send for them; but Aunt Betsy’s assertion that “she was grayer than a rat,” enlightened him with regard to her dilemma, and full permission was given for her “to sit in her bonnet” until such time as a messenger could go to the Bowery and back. In this condition she was better in her own room, and as it was in readiness, Mark conducted her to it, the stern gravity of his face putting down the laugh which sprang to the waiting-maid’s eyes at the old lady’s ejaculations of surprise that anything could be so fine as the house where she so unexpectedly found herself a guest. “She is unaccustomed to the city, but a particular friend of mine; so see that you treat her with respect,” was all the explanation he vouchsafed to the curious girl. But that was enough. A friend of Mr. Ray’s must be somebody, even if she sat with two bonnets on instead of one, and appeared ten times more rustic than Aunt Betsy, who breathed freer when she found herself alone up stairs, and knew her baggage would soon be there. In some little trepidation Mark paced up and down the parlor waiting for his mother, who came ere long, expressing her surprise to find him there, and asking if anything had happened that he seemed so agitated.