"No; we can't afford a servant, Ida. We have to economize very closely."
"I did not imagine your economy extended to doing without a servant. No wonder your hands look so rough, Cynthia. And what an old-fashioned gown you have on! Aunt Patty is your dressmaker, I suppose?"
"Yes," answered Cynthia, flushing with mortification and wounded feeling. "What is wrong with this dress?"
"The sleeves are of a fashion of two years ago, and the skirt doesn't hang well," was the immediate answer. "Well, I know something about dress-making—Aunt Stina used to say I had a natural talent for it—and I will soon put your wardrobe to rights."
"Thank you; I'll give you full liberty with it," said Cynthia. "I'd like to look as much like you as possible, of course, though I'm plain and you are pretty. Now I'll get you the hot water. We have supper at six."
"Supper? Oh, yes, of course; dinner at noon, I presume." A scornful little smile curled Ida's lip. "At Aunt Stina's we had lunch at two and dinner at seven. But, of course, that can't be expected here. You're forgetting that atrocious picture, Cynthia. You might as well take it away now as later."
Cynthia took up the picture and went out, closing the door behind her. She stood for a moment in the hall, staring down at the carpet; then sighed, threw back her head after a little fashion she had when hurt or annoyed, and then, going into her own room, just opposite the one given to Ida, hung the despised picture on an unoccupied nail over her mantel.
"It won't keep me awake," she muttered.
CHAPTER III.
"I think sometimes that I can't stand it another day, Cynthia. It makes me miserable to sit at the table with her, and I have grown to fairly dread meal-times. When she takes her soup she sucks it from the spoon; she drinks her tea with long sips that set my nerves on edge. She drums on the table with her fingers, wipes her mouth on a corner of the table-cloth, and puts her fingers into the bowl of loaf-sugar. I actually saw her once use her thumb to take a fly out of the bowl of honey."