"I think she will do very well," said Mrs. Richardson. "Blandina and her room-mate are very nice, kind, well-principled girls; and if they have your niece in their room, they will keep a kind of oversight of her, and help her when she needs help."
Meantime Percy's conductor led her up-stairs, through a passage, and then at right angles by another passage, and then down two steps to an open door.
"This is our room," said she, as she entered. "My cousin and I sleep in the large bed, and this will be yours in here. It is a little place, you see, but comfortable enough; and you can study here or in the large room just as you like, only you know we shall expect you to be quiet when we are busy. What did your aunt call you—Percy? What an odd pretty name!"
"My real name is Perseverance," replied Percy, rather wondering at herself for not feeling as shy as she had expected. "I think it is a dreadful name: don't you?"
"Oh, it is not half so bad as mine!" returned her companion, laughing. "Mine is Blandina Violetta St. Clair. It sounds exactly like a name in a novel. They call me Blandy, which is not quite so bad. Well, how do you like your room?"
"I think it is very pretty," replied Percy; and indeed it was, being nicely carpeted and papered, and tastefully though plainly furnished.
"You can bring some little things from home to ornament it, you know," observed Miss St. Clair. "Those brackets are Jenny's and mine, and so are the pictures."
"I always thought it would be very nice to have a great many pretty little things," said Percy, venturing on an original remark. "Mamma never could, because she and papa were always travelling about, and living in camps; and an officer's wife can only have just so much baggage, you know."
Blandina did not know, and began asking Percy questions, and before they had made the round of the house, they were so well acquainted that Percy ventured to ask about the lessons.
"I suppose they are very hard."