ith Louise when
she ridiculed his pudgy, round form and wondered if his bristly gray
hair wouldn't make a good scrubbing brush.

Patsy didn't get along very well with her cousins. From the first,
when Louise recognized her, with well assumed surprise, as "the girl
who had been sent to dress her hair," Patricia declared that their
stations in life were entirely different.

"There's no use of our getting mixed up, just because we're cousins
and all visiting Aunt Jane," she said. "One of you will get her money,
for I've told her I wouldn't touch a penny of it, and she has told me
I wouldn't get the chance. So one of you will be a great lady, while I
shall always earn my own living. I'll not stay long, anyhow; so just
forget I'm here, and I'll amuse myself and try not to bother you."

Both Beth and Louise considered this very sensible, and took Patricia
at her word. Moreover, Phibbs had related to Beth, whose devoted
adherent she was, all of the conversation between Aunt Jane and
Patricia, from which the girls learned they had nothing to fear from
their cousin's interference. So they let her go her way, and the three
only met at the state dinners, which Aunt Jane still attended, in
spite of her growing weakness.

Old Silas Watson, interested as he was in the result, found it hard to
decide, after ten days, which of her nieces Jane Merrick most favored.
Personally he preferred that Beth should inherit, and frankly told his
old friend that the girl would make the best mistress of Elmhurst.
Moreover, all the servants sang Beth's praises, from Misery and Phibbs
down to Oscar and Susan. Of course James the gardener favored no one,
as the numerous strangers at Elmhurst kept him in a constant state of
irritation, and his malady seemed even worse than usual. He avoided
everyone but his mistress, and although his work was now often
neglected Miss Merrick made no complaint. James' peculiarities were
well understood and aroused nothing but sympathy.

Louise, however, had played her cards so well that all Beth's friends
were powerless to eject the elder girl from Aunt Jane's esteem. Louise
had not only returned the check to her aunt, but she came often to sit
beside her and cheer her with a budget of new social gossip, and no
one could arrange the pillows so comfortably or stroke the tired head
so gently as Louise. And then, she was observing, and called Aunt
Jane's attention to several ways of curtailing the household
expenditur