The poor girl had followed Lily at a word from Mrs. Abbott, who felt, perhaps, that the ordeal of meeting some more of her fellow-scholars had better be over at once. Unnoticed, and not knowing exactly how she ought to make her presence known, the poor thing had stood motionless in the door-way hearing the cruel words, like a target into which all the arrows of scorn were being fired, till the sound of Lily’s sobs broke down her stony composure.

Katie, who was always good-natured, was really shocked at the cruel wounds the stranger had received, and, going up to her, attempted to apologize and soothe her. But the case seemed too dreadful to admit of palliation, and every thing Katie could think of to say seemed to make the matter worse. There was a sort of pathetic dignity in the way Mary Ann dried her tears after a few moments and said in a tone which showed the difficulty of commanding her voice: “I do not want to trouble Mrs. Abbott, so please, ma’am, will you show me some place I can stay where I’ll be out of people’s way?”

“Come in here,” said Lily, thoroughly ashamed of herself. “I know Mrs. Abbott meant you to come here.”

“If I could be useful to you, ma’am,” the girl said, hesitatingly, yet looking as if she longed to get away.

“I wish you’d come into my room and help me unpack,” said Katie, having tact and good-natured enough to think the proposal would be pleasing.

She led the way through the back hall and up-stairs to the dormitories, which were a row of small rooms on each side of a long hall with a large bath-room at each end. There were a double bed and two small bureaus in each room.

It was a great comfort to the unhappy stranger to find something to do, and lazy Katie found herself well paid for her kindness by the energetic way in which the contents of her trunk were all laid with orderly arrangement in the bureau-drawers while she, not to embarrass her visitor by watching her, sat on the bed looking over her photograph album, occasionally calling the attention of Miss Stubbs to a picture with some explanatory remarks.

“This is my married sister, and this gentleman over the leaf is my married brother,” she said, calling attention to two very handsome faces.

“O, aint they splendid, ma’am!” ejaculated Mary Ann, looking enraptured. “And have you really got growed-up brothers and sisters?”

“Yes, plenty of them. I’m the youngest of seven.”

“Dear me, suz! And I’m the oldest of seven!” said Miss Stubbs, in rather a self-congratulatory manner.

“O, how awful!” replied Katie. “Why, I shouldn’t think you’d have any presents and things. Now, all my brothers and sisters, except the two next to me, give me all sorts of treats and make a regular pet of me.”

Mary Ann looked at her with wondering eyes, but made no answer. She was thinking of a poor little home in the mountains, where there was so much hard work, poverty, and sickness that petting and presents were not things to be understood. She felt a sudden desire to say so, but something seemed to tell her that such a home as hers would be despised by her companion. She was glad of all she did not say when, a moment after, Katie exclaimed:

“O, see this one! It’s my own room at home. Mamma had it photographed and sent it to me last term, so I might see how the new furniture looked.”

Mary Ann studied the picture long and closely.

“How beautiful! How beautiful!” she said, at last, in breathless admiration. “The best parlor at the Peconough House is jest nothin’ to it! My lands! how rich your folks must be! and aint it awful work to dust all them ornaments?”

“I suppose so,” said Katie, indifferently. “I never dust the room myself, but mamma says the housemaid complains of all our rooms.”

Mary Ann looked at Katie curiously, then attentively at the picture again; then, rather irrelevantly it would seem to any one not following her thoughts, said with a heavy sigh:

“My, aint you got white hands, though!”

They were white, and Katie enjoyed being told of it; in fact, the admiration she and her belongings, as they were taken from the trunk, excited was very refreshing to this young lady, who had her full share of vanity. Her complacency made her quite tolerant of her companion’s uncouth ways, and she propped herself comfortably against a pillow and proceeded to astonish her auditor by an extended account of her luxuries and privileges in her beautiful home.

Her descriptions were assisted and confirmed by two photographs that were too large to go in the album. The views showed the house to be very elegant, but the girls were rather tired of Katie’s “bragging,” and it was seldom she could get an opportunity of expending so much eloquence upon her favorite theme.

While Mary Ann listened with entranced interest to the description of home-life which seemed to her like a piece out of a fairy-tale her rough, red hands were not idle. Having emptied the trunk of all excepting its heaviest contents she dragged it into the hall for Duffy to carry into the store-room, and, pulling a spool and tatting-shuttle out of her pocket, made the latter fly as if its motor were steam.

By and by Lily put her head in the half-closed door, flushing at the sight of Miss Stubbs, but otherwise taking no notice of her.

“Please come to Mrs. Abbott’s room, Katie; she wants us for a few minutes,” she said, disappearing as suddenly as she came. Katie smoothed her hair at the glass and turned to obey the request. At the same instant small flying feet were heard and a little voice counting the doors, “One, two, three, four, five, same’s my little finger; this is the one, I know;” and with a little knock that she didn’t wait to hear answered Ethel danced into the room.

“I’ve come back for you,” she exclaimed, running up to Mary Ann, “and Mrs. Abbott says you may come with us to see the peacocks, and we are going to feed them, too. Candace is getting your hat, and she’ll wait on the piazza for us. Come, hurry! hurry! The big one’s got his tail lifted all up like a big, big feather fan.”