night. I was so very tired.

[Illustration: A nice-looking oldish man came forward and bowed
respectfully to grandmamma.--P. 126.]

A nice-looking oldish man came forward and bowed respectfully to
grandmamma. He was the butler. He handed us over, so to say, to a
nice-looking oldish woman, who was the head housemaid, and she took us
at once upstairs to our rooms, the butler asking grandmamma to leave the
luggage and the cab-paying to him--he would see that it was all right.
She thanked him nicely, but rather 'grandly'--not at all as if she
was not accustomed to lots of servants and attention, which I was
pleased at. It was a good thing for me that I had been so much with the
Nestors; it prevented my seeming awkward or shy with so many servants
about, which otherwise I might have been. Grandmamma of course _had_
been used to being rich, but _I_ never had.

There came a disappointment the very first thing. Hales, the housemaid,
threw open the door of a large, rather gloomy-looking bedroom, where a
fire was burning and candles already lighted.

'Your room, ma'am,' she said. 'Missie's----' she hesitated. 'Miss
Wingfield's,' said granny. 'Miss Wingfield's,' Hales repeated, 'is on
the next floor but one.'

Grandmamma looked uneasy.

'Is it far from this room?' she said.

'Oh no, ma'am, just the staircase--it is over this. Mr. Vandeleur
thought it was the best. It was Mrs. Vandeleur's when she was a little
girl.' For the house in Chichester Square had been left to Cousin Agnes
by her parents a few years ago; that was why it seemed rather
old-fashioned. 'All the rooms on this floor besides this one,' Hales
went on, 'are Mrs. Vandeleur's; and master's study, and the next floor
are spare rooms, except to the back, and we thought it was fresher and
pleasanter to the front for the young lady.'

Grandmamma looked pleased at the kind way Hales spoke, but still she
hesitated. I gave her a little tug.

'I don't mind,' I said, for I was not at all a frightened child about
sleeping alone and things like that. She smiled back at me. 'That's
right,' she said, and I felt rewarded.

My room was a nice one when I got there, but it did seem a tremendous
way up, and it looked rather bare and felt rather chilly, even though
there was a fire burning, which, however, had not been lighted very
long. The housemaid went towards it and gave it a poke, murmuring
something about 'Belinda being so careless.' Belinda, as I soon found
out, was