“O, no; not from Holland, except long ago when one of my ancestors came over and fought in the Revolution. I’m from New York. I don’t think I know your name.” Another brief pause. “I’m awfully sorry about your father. But maybe you’ll feel happier when you get started in your work and get around with the girls. I was sure that I never could stand it to leave home, but I just love it here now,” Cathalina’s tender heart was sorry and troubled for this young stranger with her aching heart; though she was somewhat chilled by the girl’s attitude.
Just then the study bell rang, and with a bow, like that of one accustomed to a formal life, the new girl left Cathalina and hurried away. Cathalina stopped to pick up a notebook and her fountain pen from the chair in which she had been sitting and then walked thoughtfully upstairs, thinking as she went that she had not learned the name of the newcomer. “Where have I seen somebody like that before?” she wondered. “And that manner?” But when she reached the suite there was a group of girls just leaving for their rooms and the merry chatter put an end to her thoughts about other things.
A few days after this incident, Cathalina, with Betty Barnes, Isabel Hunt, Eloise Winthrop and Diane Percy were sitting in the window-seat at the head of the front stairs when this girl swiftly passed them and went on downstairs.
“Isn’t she a beautiful girl?” said Diane.
“Yes, but you can’t get acquainted with her,” replied Eloise.
“Well, she’s just lost her father,—no wonder!” Cathalina said with sympathy.
“Where’d she come from?” asked Isabel.
“Nobody knows. She told one girl Cincinnati, another New York and Miss West said she was from Philadelphia. Did you see them come? The machine had an Ohio tag on it.”
“O, did you see her come?”
“Yes; Diane and Grace and I were standing on the porch. They came in a big closed Packard,—she and a woman that looked just like her, except that she had dark hair and a wider face. They weren’t expected, I’m sure, and they didn’t take out any baggage for a long time and were in Miss Randolph’s parlor for over an hour,—we must have been in the library an hour, weren’t we, Diane? And when we came back, there they were, coming down the steps. The chauffeur took in a lot of baggage and the girl came out and cried and carried on and would hardly let the woman go. She was in black, too. The chauffeur looked cross, what we could see of his face, and hustled the woman into the car and pointed the girl to the Hall!”