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Laura took the new cousin up to her room

The lady, who was tall and dark-haired, like Laura, but with lines of gray threading the black, put her arms around the girl and kissed her. Even in her preoccupation, Elliott was dimly aware that the quality of this embrace was subtly different from any that she had ever received before, though the lady’s words were not unlike Laura’s. “Dear child,” she said, “we are so glad to know you.” And the big dark eyes smiled into Elliott’s with a look that was quite new to that young person’s experience. She didn’t know why she felt a queer thrill run up her spine, but the thrill was there, just for a minute. Then it was gone and the girl only thought that Aunt Jessica had the most fascinating eyes that she had ever seen; whenever she chose, it seemed that she could turn on a great steady light to shine through their velvety blackness.

Laura took the new cousin up to her room. The house through which they 28 passed seemed rather a barren affair, but somehow pleasant in spite of its dark painted floors and rag rugs and unmistakably shabby furniture. Flowers were everywhere, doors stood open, and breezes blew in at the windows, billowing the straight scrim curtains. The guest’s room was small and slant-ceilinged. One picture, an unframed photograph of a big tree leaning over a brook, was tacked to the wall; a braided rug lay on the floor; on a small table were flowers and a book; over the queer old chest of drawers hung a small mirror; there was no pier-glass at all. Very spotless and neat, but bare—hopelessly bare, unless one liked that sort of thing.

There was one bit of civilization, however, that these people appreciated—one’s need of warm water. As Elliott bathed and dressed, her spirits lightened a little. It did rather freshen a person’s outlook, on a hot day, to get clean. She even 29 opened the book to discover its name. “Lorna Doone.” Was that the kind of thing they read at the farm? She had always meant to read “Lorna Doone,” when she had time enough. It looked so interminably long. But there wouldn’t be much else to do up here, she reflected. Then she surveyed what she could of herself in the dim little mirror—probably Laura would wish to copy her style of hair-dressing—and descended, very slender and chic, to supper.

It was a big circle which sat down at that supper-table. There was Uncle Robert, short and jolly and full of jokes, who wished to hear all about everybody and plied Elliott with questions. There was another new cousin, a wiry boy called Tom, and a boy older than Henry, who certainly wasn’t a cousin, but who seemed very much one of the family and who was introduced as Bruce Fearing. And there was Stannard. Stannard had returned in 30 high feather from Upton and intercourse with a classmate whom he would doubtless have termed his kind. Stannard was inclined for a minute or two to indulge in code talk with Elliott. She did not encourage him and it amused her to observe how speedily the conversation became general again, though in quite what way it was accomplished she could not detect.

But if these new cousins’ manners were above reproach, their supper-table was far from sophisticated. No maid appeared, and Gertrude and Tom and eight-year-old Priscilla changed the plates. Laura and Aunt Jessica, Elliott noticed, had entered from the kitchen. It was no secret that all the girls had been berrying in the forenoon. Henry seemed to have had a hand in making the ice-cream, judging by the compliments he received. So that was the way they lived, thought the new guest! It was, however, a surprisingly good supper. Elliott was astonished at herself for 31 eating so much salad, so many berries and muffins, and for passing her plate twice for ice-cream.

After supper every one seemed to feel it the natural thing to set to work and “do” the dishes, or something else equally pressing; at least every one for a short time grew amazingly busy. Even Elliott asked for an apron—it was Elliott’s code when in Rome to do as the Romans do—though she was relieved when her uncle tucked her arm in his and said she must come and talk to him on the porch. As they left the kitchen, the boy Bruce was skilfully whirling a string mop in a pan full of hot suds.

Under cover of animated chatter with her uncle Elliott viewed the prospect dolefully. Dish-washing came three times a day, didn’t it? The thing was evidently a family rite in this household. The girl understood her respite could be only temporary; self-respect would see to that. 32 But didn’t she catch a glimpse of Stannard nonchalantly sauntering around a corner of the house with the air of one who hopes his back will not be noticed?

Presently she discovered another household custom—to go up to the top of the hill to watch the sunset. Up between flowering borders and through a grassy orchard the path climbed, thence to wind through thickets of sweet fern and scramble around boulders over a wild, fragrant pasture slope. It was beautiful up there on the hilltop, with its few big sheltering trees, its welter of green crests on every side, and its line of far blue peaks behind which the sun went down—beautiful but depressing. Depressing because every one, except Stannard, seemed to enjoy it so. Elliott couldn’t help seeing that they were having a thoroughly good time. There was something engaging about these cousins that Elliott had never seen among her cousins at home, a good-fellowship 33 that gave one in their presence a sense of being closely knit together; of something solid, dependable and secure, for all its lightness and variety. But, oh, dear! she knew that she wasn’t going to care for the things that they cared for, or enjoy doing the things that they did! And there must be at least six weeks of this—dish-washing and climbing hills, with good frocks on. Six weeks, not a day longer. But she exclaimed in pretty enthusiasm over Laura’s disclosure of a bed of maidenhair fern, tasted approvingly Tom’s spring water, recited perfectly, after only one hearing, Henry’s tale of the peaks in view, and let Bruce Fearing give her a geography lesson from the southernmost point of the hilltop.

It was only when at last she was in bed in the slant-ceilinged room, with her candle blown out and a big moon looking in at the window, that Elliott quite realized how forlorn she felt and how very, very far 34 three thousand miles from Father was actually going to seem.

The world up here in Vermont was so very still. There were no lights except the stars, and for a person accustomed to an electrically illuminated street only a few rods from her window, stars and a moon merely added to the strangeness. Soft noises came from the other rooms, sounds of people moving about, but not a sound from outside, nothing except at intervals the cry of a mournful bird. After a while the noises inside ceased. Elliott lay quiet, staring at the moonlit room, and feeling more utterly miserable than she had ever felt before in her life. Homesick? It must be that this was homesickness. And she had been wont to laugh, actually laugh, at girls who said they were homesick! She hadn’t known that it felt like this! She hadn’t known that anything in all the world could feel as hideous as this. She knew that in a minute 35 she was going to cry—she couldn’t help herself; actually, Elliott