"All the other children went home for Christmas, but I had no home to go to; and I saw them depart with much sorrow, and was crying to find myself alone, having watched the last of my school-fellows going out with her mother through the garden-gate, when Miss Latournelle came up all in a hurry. "'Miss Reynolds,' she said, 'what do you think? You were born, surely, with a silver spoon in your mouth. But there is a letter come, and you are to go from church on Christmas Day in the coach to spend the holidays with Miss Vaughan. It is all settled; and you are to have a new slip, and crape tucker and apron, and a best black cap. Come, come, we must look up your things, and we have only two days for it; come away, fetch your thimble; and don't let me see any idleness.' "The kind teacher was as pleased for me as I was for myself; though she drove me about the next two days, as if I had been her slave. "When I found myself in the coach, on Christmas Day, all alone, and driving away with four horses to the great house at the end of the avenue, I really did not know what to make of myself. I tried all the four corners of the coach, looked out at every window, nodded to one or two schoolfellows I saw walking in the streets, and made myself as silly as the daw in borrowed feathers." The children laughed, and the old lady went on: "When I got to the lodge and the avenue, however, I became more thoughtful and steady. Even in that short drive, the idea of riding in a coach-and-four was losing some of its freshness, and deeper thoughts had come. I was a little put out, too, at the sight of the fine man-servant who opened the doors for me and led me upstairs. The moment I entered Miss Evelyn's sitting-room, she ran up to me, and put her arms around my neck, kissing me several times. "'Dear, dear Mary,' she said, 'how very glad I am to see you! I shall be so happy! I have got a cough; I am not to go out till warm weather comes; and it is so sad to be shut up and see nothing but the trees waving, and hear nothing but the wind whistling and humming. But now you are come I shall be so happy!' "'I hope you will, Miss Vaughan,' said Mrs. Harris; 'and that your head will not always be running, as it has been lately, upon all manner of dismal things. Miss Reynolds, you must do your best to amuse Miss Evelyn; you must tell her all the news of the school, and the little misses; I dare say you can tell her many pretty stories.' "Evelyn did not answer Harris, though she gave her a look with more scorn in it than I had ever seen her give before. "Miss Vaughan had shown symptoms of great weakness in the chest--that is, Henry, in the part where people breathe. She had been directed by the physician to be kept, for some weeks to come, in her own rooms; and when this order was given, she had begged to have me with her.