The maid who had shown me my room told me that Miss Trafford would be glad to see me as soon as I was ready, so I hastened to take off my dusty travelling dress and to make myself ready to go downstairs.
After about half an hour the maid came back again to conduct me. We went through several long passages, past a number of doors, until we arrived at Miss Evelyn Trafford's room.
The maid opened the door and I went in. The gas was not lighted, but the fire was blazing brightly, and by its light I could see a young lady lying on a low couch on one side of it. She was very pretty, with small, delicate features, and a beautiful fair complexion, and appeared to be about seventeen or eighteen years of age. On the sofa beside her were lying two kittens curled up on a velvet cushion, and in front of the fire was a little spaniel fast asleep on the hearth-rug.
As soon as the door opened Miss Trafford hold out her hand to me.
"Come in, Miss Lindsay," she said; "come to the fire; you must be tired and cold; it's dreadfully cold out, is it not? There, Flossy, get up and let Miss Lindsay come to the fire."
She had a pretty, childish manner, which was very winning and pleasant. "I am so glad you have come," she said, when I was seated, "and you look so nice. Do you know I thought you would be dreadful, before you came! When papa said one day that it was so dull for me up here alone he must get me a companion, I actually cried, Miss Lindsay. It was very silly of me, I know, but then I always am a silly child. I pictured to myself what this companion would be like, and I thought she would have grey curls, and spectacles, and a brown alpaca dress, and always talk as if she were talking out of a book."
I could not help laughing heartily when she said this.
"Oh, I am so glad you can laugh," said Miss Trafford; "the companion, in the picture I made of her, never laughed—she only smiled, as if she was thinking, 'How foolish every one in the world is, and especially this weak-minded child I have to take care of.'"
This, of course, made me laugh again, to Miss Trafford's great satisfaction.
"Papa said he would get me somebody young and charming if he could, and he told me when he was writing about you how old you were, but I didn't think I should like you a bit, and I didn't want you to come at all."