d it.

The door of the spare-room was open, and the girls entered upon a scene
of chaos. Annette rose from her knees, showing a brick-red countenance
of wrath that strove in vain for any sort of dignity. And again that
look of distant laughter came into Lady Connie's eyes.

"My dear Annette, why aren't you having a rest, as I told you! I can do
with anything to-night."

"Well, my lady, if you'll tell me how you'll get into bed, unless I put
some of these things away, I should be obliged!" said Annette, with a
dark look at Nora. "I've asked for a wardrobe for you, and this young
lady says there isn't one. There's that hanging cupboard"--she pointed
witheringly to the curtained recess--"your dresses will be ruined there
in a fortnight. And there's that chest of drawers. Your things will have
to stay in the trunks, as far as I can see, and then you might as well
sleep on them. It would give you more room!"

With which stroke of sarcasm, Annette returned to the angry unpacking of
her mistress's bag.

"I must buy a wardrobe," said Connie, looking round her in perplexity.
"Never mind, Annette, I can easily buy one."

It was now Nora's turn to colour.

"You mustn't do that," she said firmly. "Father wouldn't like it. We'll
find something. But do you want such a lot of things?"

She looked at the floor heaped with every variety of delicate mourning,
black dresses, thick and thin, for morning and afternoon; and black and
white, or pure white, for the evening. And what had happened to the bed?
It was already divested of the twilled cotton sheets and marcella quilt
which were all the Hoopers ever allowed either to themselves or their
guests. They had been replaced by sheets 'of the finest and smoothest
linen, embroidered with a crest and monogram in the corners, and by a
coverlet of old Italian lace lined with pale blue silk; while the down
pillows at the head with their embroidered and lace-trimmed slips
completed the transformation of what had been a bed, and was now almost
a work of art.

And the dressing-table! Nora went up to it in amazement. It too was
spread with lace lined with silk, and covered with a toilet-set of
mother-of-pearl and silver. Every brush and bottle was crested and
initialled. The humble looking-glass, which Nora, who was something of a
carpenter, had herself mended before her cousin's arrival, was standing
on the floor in a corner, and a folding mirror framed in embossed silver
had taken its pl