which someone died scarce a month ago! Where is
my woman? Call her. I must have that changed."

Rhoda summoned Betty, who came, courtesying. Her mistress was too much
preoccupied in mind to notice the civility.

"Why, what could you all be thinking of, to put me in this chamber? I
must have another. This is the best, I know; but I cannot think of
sleeping here. Show me the next best--that long one in the south wing."

"That is the young gentlewomen's chamber, Madam," objected Betty.

"Well, what does that matter?" demanded Mrs Latrobe, sharply. "Can't
they have another? I suppose I come first!"

"Yes, of course, Madam," said subdued Betty.

Rhoda looked dismayed, but kept silence. She was learning her lesson.
Mrs Latrobe looked into the girls' room, rapidly decided on it, and
ordered it to be got ready for her.

"Then which must the young gentlewomen have, Madam?" inquired Betty.

"Oh, any," said Mrs Latrobe, carelessly. "There are enough."

"Which would you like, Mrs Rhoda?" incautiously asked Betty.

Before Rhoda could reply, her aunt said quickly,--

"Ask Mrs Phoebe, if you please."

And Betty remembered that the cousins had changed places. It was a very
bitter pill to Rhoda; and it was not like Rhoda to say--yet she said it,
as soon as she had the opportunity--

"Phoebe, Aunt Anne means you to choose our room: please don't have a
little stuffy one."

"Dear Rhoda, which would you like?" responded Phoebe at once.

A little sob escaped Rhoda.

"Oh, Phoebe, you are going to be the only one who is good to me! I
should like that other long one in the north wing, that matches ours;
but don't choose it if you don't like it."

"We will have that," said Phoebe, reassuringly; "at least, if Mother
leaves it to me."

Thus early it was made evident that the old nature in Anne Latrobe was
scotched, not killed. Sorrow seemed to have laid merely a repressive
hand upon her bad qualities, and to have uprooted none but good ones.
The brilliance and playfulness of her early days were gone. The _coeur
leger_ had turned to careless self-love, the impetuosity had become
peevish obstinacy.

"Old Madam never spoke to me in that way!" said Betty. "She liked to
have her way, poor dear gentlewoman, as well as anybody; and she
wouldn't take a bit of impudence like so much barley-sugar, I'll not say
she would; but she was a gentlewoman, every inch of her, that she was.
And that's more than you can say for so