The room into which she was ushered was not unattractive even to her city-bred eyes. To be sure the furnishings were inexpensive, that she saw at a glance, but she could not help feeling the air of daintiness and comfort everywhere. The materials used were nothing but rose-colored cambric and sheer white muslin, but the effect was lovely. There was a little fire in an open grate and a low old-fashioned chair drawn up invitingly. The day was just a trifle chilly for October, but the windows were still wide open.
"Now, dear," said Mrs. Grey, throwing the door open, "I hope you will be perfectly comfortable here. My room is just across the hall and Allison sleeps next to you, so you need not be lonely in the night"
Left to herself Miss Rutherford took off her hat and looked about her. The room was pretty enough. The low, wide window-seat in the bay window, covered with rosebud chintz and provided with plenty of luxurious pillows, was quite charming; but then it had a homemade look, after all, and the girl scorned homemade things. She had not been brought up to love and reverence the home. Her world was society, and how society would laugh over an effect achieved in cheap cottons with such evident lack of professional decorators. Nevertheless, she looked about with curiosity and a growing satisfaction. Since she must be thus cast upon a desert island she was glad that it was no worse, and she shuddered over the thought of the possibilities in that boarding house she had passed. However, she was not a young woman given to much thanksgiving and generally spent her time in bewailing what she did not have rather than in being glad over what she had escaped.
Presently the lack of a maid, who was to her a necessary institution, began to make itself felt. Her aunt had servants she knew, for they had been mentioned occasionally in the long letters she wrote at stated intervals to them. Her father had most emphatically declared against taking a maid with her from New York. This had been one of her greatest grievances. Her father said that her aunt had all the servants that would be necessary to wait upon her, and it was high time she learned to do things for herself. All her tears and protestations had not availed.
But in this house there had been no word of a maid. Mrs. Grey had told her to let her know if there was anything she needed, but had not suggested sending a servant. Of course they must have servants. She would investigate.
She looked about her for signs of a bell, but no bell appeared. She opened the door and listened. There was the distant tinkle of china and silver, as of someone setting a table; there came a tempting whiff of something savory through the hall and distant voices talking low and pleasantly, but there seemed to be no servant anywhere in sight or sound.
Across the hall Mrs. Grey's wide, old-fashioned room seemed to smile peacefully at her and speak of a life she did not understand and into which she had never had a glimpse before. It annoyed her now. She did not care for it. It seemed to demand a depth of earnestness beneath living that was uncomfortable, she knew not why. She went in and slammed her door again and sat down on the bay-window seat, looking out discontentedly across the lawn.
Presently a wagon drove into the yard carrying her two large trunks. She heard voices about the door and then the heavy tread of man bearing a burden. She waited, thinking how she could get hold of a servant.
Allison's light tap on the door soon followed and behind her was the man with a trunk on his shoulder.
"Wal, I kin tell yew that there trunk ain't filled with feathers!" ejaculated the man as he put down the trunk with a thump and looked shrewdly at its owner.
"You ought to bring someone to help you, Mr. Carter," said Allison's fresh, clear voice, with just a tinge of indignation in it as she looked toward the stranger, "that was entirely too much of a lift for you."
Miss Rutherford curled her lip and turned toward the window till the colloquy should be concluded.
"And now," said Mr. Carter, puffing and blowing from the weight of the second trunk which was even worse than the first, "I s'pose you want them there things unstropped. You don't look like you was much more fit to do it yourself than one o' these ere grasshoppers, er a good-sized butterfly."
"Sir!" said Miss Rutherford in freezing astonishment
"I said as how you wa'n't built for unstroppin' trunks," remarked the amiable Carter with his foot against the top of the trunk and his cheeks puffed out in the effort to unfasten a refractory buckle.
"Your remarks are entirely unnecessary," said the haughty young woman, straightening herself to her full height and looking disagreeable in the extreme.
The buckle gave way, and Carter taking his old hat from the floor where it had fallen looked at her slowly and carefully from head to foot, his face growing redder than when he had first put down the trunk.
"No harm meant, I'm sure, miss," he said in deep embarrassment as he shuffled away, mumbling something under his breath as he went downstairs.
'The idea!" said the young woman to herself. "What impudence! He ought not to be employed by decent people." Then she heard Allison's step in the hall and remembered her wants.
"Will you please let your maid bring me some hot water," she said with a sweet imperiousness she knew how to assume on occasion.
"I will attend to it at once," answered Allison in a cold tone, and it became evident to the guest that her sympathies were all with Mr. Carter. It made her indignant and she retired to her room to await the hot water.
She stood before the mantel idly studying a few photographs. One, the face of a young man, scarcely more than a boy, attracted her with an oddly familiar glance. Where had she seen someone who had that same peculiarly direct gaze, that awakened a faint stir of undefined pleasant memories? She turned from the picture without having discovered, to answer the tap on the door with a "come" that was meant as a pleasant preface to her request that the entering maid would assist her a little, and met Allison with the hot water.
"Oh, how kind to bring it yourself," said the guest a trifle less stiffly than before. "But would you mind lending me your maid for a few minutes? Can you spare her? I won't keep her very long."
The color crept into Allison's cheek as she answered steadily: "I am very sorry to say we are without any just now, so I cannot possibly send her to you; but I shall be glad to help you in any way I can as soon as mother can spare me."
"Oh, indeed!" said the guest with one of her stares. "Don't trouble yourself. I shall doubtless get along in some way," and she turned her back upon Allison and looked haughtily out of the window.
Allison reflected a moment and said in a pleasanter tone:
"If there is any lifting to be done or your trunks are not right, father will help you when he comes in for supper. And I'm sure mother would want me to help you in any way I can, if you will just tell me what to do. Would you like me to help you unpack?"
"Oh, no, thank you," said the guest with her face still toward the window, "I can do very well myself."
Allison hesitated and then turned to go. As she was half out the door she said helplessly: "We have supper in half an hour. If you want me just call. I can easily hear you."
Miss Rutherford made no answer. After the door had closed she began elaborate preparations for a dinner toilet. She belonged to a part of the world that consider it a crime to appear at dinner in any but evening attire. In her life atmosphere it was thought to be a part of the unwritten code of culture which must be adhered to in spite of circumstances, as one would wear clothes even if thrown among naked savages. In her eyes Hillcroft was somewhat of a cannibal island, but it never occurred to her that it would be proper for her to do as the savages did. Therefore she "dressed" for dinner.
It was decidedly over an hour from that time before the guest descended. Mr. Grey had waited as patiently as possible, though he had pressing engagements for the evening. The bell rang twice, loud and clear, and Allison tapped at her door once and asked politely if she could be of any assistance as supper was ready; but in spite of all this the guest came into the dining room as coolly as if she had not been keeping every one waiting for at least three-quarters of an hour, and spoiling