"Yes, Mrs. Franklin. I am Edith. I hope your journey has not tired you?"
"Not at all. I am not easily tired."
Edith kissed her father, then turned again to the stranger.
"Let me show you the way upstairs."
And thus Mrs. Franklin entered her new home.
"I am afraid it is going to be war with Edith at first, but I won't be disheartened," she thought. "I'll make her like me. It is natural for her to feel so, I suppose. Ah me, I am in a difficult position."
Edith and Cynthia shared the same room. It was a large one with a bay-window, which commanded a fine view of the winding river and the meadows beyond.
One could tell at a glance upon entering the room which part of it Edith occupied, and which Cynthia. Cynthia's dressing-table, with its ungainly pin-cushion, its tangle of ribbons and neckties tossed down anywhere that they might happen to fall, its medley of horseshoes, tennis balls, and other treasures, was a constant source of trial to Edith, whose possessions were always kept in perfect neatness. She scolded and lectured her sister in vain; Cynthia was incorrigible.
"It's too much bother to keep things in order," she would say. "After you have been around with your duster and your fixings-up I never can find a thing, Edith."