"That is a charming song and you have lovely voice, but would you mind telling me who you are, where you have come from and how you happen to be so at home in a room in our house?" Betty Ashton inquired, coolly, still keeping her position just outside the opened door.
The stranger jumped instantly to her feet, letting fall some brown embroidery silk and a number of bright-colored beads, then she stood with her eyes fixed anxiously on the apparition before her, nervously twisting her big, rather coarse-looking hands. She was a year older than Betty Ashton and at the first glance it would have been difficult to imagine two persons more unlike. Betty was slender but perfectly proportioned and had an air of unusual beauty and refinement, which her friends believed must come of her long line of distinguished ancestors, while the new girl was thin and angular, with hands and feet that seemed too big for her, and a pale, freckled skin. She too had gray eyes, but while Betty's brows and lashes were the color of her hair, this girl's were so light that they failed to give the needful shadows to her eyes.
In order to gain time and courage the newcomer walked slowly across the room, but when she spoke the beauty of her voice gave her unexpected charm and dignity.
"Hasn't your mother told you of my coming? didn't she ask you if you wanted me to come?" she questioned slowly. "I am sorry; my name is Esther Clark, but my name can mean nothing to you. Your mother has asked me here to live, to take care of your clothes, to read to you, to take walks when there is no one else--"
"Oh, you mean you are to be my maid," Betty finished, coming now into the center of the room and studying the other girl critically, her eyes suddenly dark with displeasure and her lips closed into a firm red line.
"I must say it is strange no one has thought to mention your coming to me, and as I am not a child, I think I might have been consulted as to whether I wished to be bothered with you." Betty bit her lips, for she did not mean to be unkind; only she was extremely provoked and was unaccustomed not to having her wishes consulted.
The older girl's face was no longer pale but had suddenly grown crimson. "No, I am not to be your maid," she returned. "At least Mrs. Ashton said I was to be a kind of companion; though I am to be useful to you in any way you like, I am still to go to school and to have time for studying. Of course the holidays are nearly here now, but later on I hope to graduate. If you don't wish me to stay you will please explain it to your mother, only--" Esther tried to speak naturally, but her voice faltered, "I hope you will be willing to let me stay at least until I can find some other place. I am too old to go back to the asylum."
"Asylum!" Betty stepped back in such genuine that her companion laughed, showing her white, even teeth and the softer curve to her mouth that relieved her face of some of its former plainness.
"Oh, I only meant the orphan asylum, so please don't be frightened," she explained. "I have lived there, it is just at the edge of town, ever since I was a little girl, because when my mother and father died, there was nothing else to do with me. But you need not feel specially sorry, because I have never been ill-treated in the fashion you read about in books. Most of the people in charge have been very kind and I have been going to school for years. Only when your mother came last week and said she wanted me to come here to live, why it did seem kind of wonderful to find out what a beautiful home was like, and then most of all I wanted to know you. You will think it strange of me, but I have been seeing you with your mother or nurse ever since you were a little girl of three or four and I a little older, and I have always been interested in you."
Betty smiled, showing a dimple which sometimes appeared after an exhibition of temper of which she felt ashamed. "Oh, you will be sorry enough to know what I am really like," she answered, "and will probably think I am dreadfully spoiled. But do please stay for a while if you wish, at least until we find how we get on together."