"Go to your room, if you will, and lay aside your wraps," came the voice, in an authoritative way.
Without speaking, Lottie obeyed. She felt as she slowly climbed the stairs that she had become a veritable automaton, without volition or energy, and compelled to do certain things. This grated on the sensitive nature of the girl, to whom, in the happy days that had passed, freedom to live in and enjoy the open air was everything. And now—and Lottie inwardly groaned at the thought—her actions were directed by one who seemed to forget her own girlhood, or that she had ever enjoyed the bright blue sky, the green fields, the merry, twittering birds, or the companionship of those who were of her own age.
Lottie had often wondered in her own mind if her aunt had ever been young, and if she had enjoyed her youth. There was no one to whom she could go for an answer. Had there been, Lottie would have been surprised to learn that she had been full of bright, merry fun, and had enjoyed life as she had at home.
"At home," Lottie thought, and paused, thinking of her mother, of the comforts and freedom of home, and then she looked in the glass to see if she was not old, for those happy days did seem so far away.
Mrs. Durand had met with many disappointments and a great deal of trouble in her life, of which Lottie knew nothing, and which had embittered her disposition, making her crabbed and disagreeable. As she now was, Lottie supposed she had ever been.
For some moments Lottie had looked in the glass, musingly. Now, as her thoughts returned to herself and her surroundings, she saw a dreary, woe-begone face looking at her from the quaint, cracked, old-fashioned mirror on her bureau. It was so doleful and forlorn, that Lottie nearly cried in sympathy with the miseries of the face before her. In a moment, realizing that it was her own reflection she saw, and enjoying her mistake, she laughed heartily, whereat the face in the mirror smiled pleasantly in return.
"Humph!" said the voice downstairs.
"Oh dear!" exclaimed Lottie softly; "I have made her think that I don't care about staying out so long." And she slowly turned from the bureau and her mirth-provoking vis à vis, and leaving her room, slowly descended the stairs to her aunt.
The room in which her aunt sat was furnished very plainly. Some cane-bottomed chairs, a black horse-hair sofa, a small wooden stand, adorned with a red cloth on which was the family Bible; two or three pictures upon the dingy walls, a pair of tall lamps with a bit of red flannel in the bottom, graced the mantelpiece. A dull ingrain carpet, and some home-made mats covered the floor. These, with a cloth-covered brick used to keep the door open, completed the furnishing of Mrs. Durand's parlor.
Mrs. Durand herself was a small, thin, wiry woman. Her features could hardly be called attractive; her lips were thin and tightly shut; her eyes were colorless, and she wore three stiff, little curls on each side of her face. She wore a dark gown, over which was a black apron, and on her head was a black lace cap. She was busily engaged in making another mat to adorn the floor, from long, bright-colored strips of cloth.