hen a knock at the door was
followed by the appearance of Belinda--at least I guessed it was
Belinda, for I had not seen her before. She was a pleasant enough
looking girl, but with rather a pert manner, and she spoke to me as if I
were about six.

'You'd better get up at once, miss, as breakfast's to be so early, and
I'm to help you to dress if you need me.'

'No, thank you,' I said with great dignity, 'I don't want any help. But
where's my bath?'

'I've had no orders about a bath,' she replied, 'but, to be sure, you
can't go to the bathroom, as it's next master's dressing-room. You'll
have to speak to Hales about it,' and she went away murmuring something
indistinctly as to new ways and new rules.

In a few minutes, however, she came back again, lumbering a bath after
her and looking rather cross.

'How different she is from Kezia,' I thought to myself. 'I would not
have minded anything as much if she had come with us.'

Still, I was sensible enough to know that it was no use making the worst
of things, and I think I must have looked rather pleasanter and more
cheerful than the evening before, when I tapped at grandmamma's door and
went downstairs to breakfast holding her hand.

_She_ had much more to think of and trouble about than I, and if I had
not been so selfish I was quite sensible enough to have understood this.
A great many things required rearranging and overlooking in the
household, for, though the servants were good on the whole, it was long
since they had had a mistress's eye over them, and without that, even
the best servants are pretty sure to get into careless ways. And
grandmamma was so very conscientious that she felt even more anxious
about all these things for Mr. and Mrs. Vandeleur's sake, than if it had
been her own house and her own servants. Besides, though she was so
clever and experienced, it was a good many years since she had had a
large house to look after, as our little home at Middlemoor had been so
very, very simple. Yes, I see now it must have been very hard upon her,
for, instead of doing all I could to help her, I was quite taken up with
my own part of it, and ready to grumble at and exaggerate every little
difficulty or disagreeableness.

I think grandmamma tried for some time not to see the sort of humour I
was in, and how selfish and spoilt I had become. She excused me to
herself by saying I was tired, and that such a complete change of life
was trying for a child, and b