ong, deep sigh
trembling over her lips.

Both girls awoke early the next morning.

"When do you have breakfast?" asked Iris, with a yawn.

"At eight o'clock," said Dorothy; "so we need not be in a hurry about
getting up. It can not be more than six now."

"Oh, dear! then I shall have to get up at once," cried Iris; "for it
takes me fully that long to dress."

"Two hours!" cried Dorothy, amazed, adding: "Why, just put on a wrapper.
Nobody here ever thinks of making a toilet to appear at the
breakfast-table. There is no one but Mrs. Kemp, Harry, you and I."

She could not catch Iris' unintelligible reply, but she noticed that the
girl was not to be persuaded.

She commenced dressing at once.

Soon Dorothy detected a strange odor of burning paper in the room.

"What is that?" she cried, in alarm. "Oh, Miss Vincent, the house must
be on fire!"

Iris laughed long and loud.

"You delightful, innocent little goose!" she cried. "I am only curling
my bangs with an iron heated over the gas, and I'm trying the tongs on
paper to see that they are not too hot. I put my curls up in paper last
night, but the horrid old things wouldn't curl because of the damp
atmosphere, and--" She did not finish the sentence for Dorothy supplied
it in her own mind--"her new friend was desirous of looking her best."

Harry was pacing impatiently up and down the breakfast-room when they
entered.

"Good-morning, Miss Vincent; good-morning, Dorothy!" he exclaimed,
eagerly; and Dorothy's heart gave a quick start, noting that he called
her name last.

And another thing struck Dorothy quite forcibly. To her great surprise,
she noticed that Iris spoke in quite a different tone from what she did
when they were alone together in their own room.

There her accents were drawling, but now they were so wonderfully sweet
and musical that Dorothy was struck with wonder. She never knew that a
person could speak in two different tones of voice like this.

At the breakfast-table the conversation was bright and merry, though
outside the rain had commenced to patter against the window-pane.

Dorothy felt strangely diffident, for only a small portion of the
conversation was directed now and then to her, and Harry and Miss
Vincent kept up such a lively chatter that there was scarcely an
opportunity to get in a word edgewise.

The conversation turned upon horseback riding, and it brought a strange
pang to Dorothy's heart, for that had been the most pl