y kind little reasons of that sort.

'I shall be rather busy this morning,' she said to me that first day at
breakfast, 'but if it keeps fine we can go out a little in the
afternoon, and let you have your first peep of London. Let me see, what
can you do with yourself this morning? You have your things to unpack
still, and I daresay you would like to put out your ornaments and books
in your own room.'

'I don't mean to put them out,' I said, 'it's not worth while. I will
keep my books in one of the boxes and just get one out when I want it,
and as for the ornaments, they wouldn't look anything in that big, bare
room.'

But as I said this I caught sight of grandmamma's face, and I felt
ashamed of being so grumbling when I was really feeling more cheerful
and interested in everything than the night before. So I changed my tone
a little.

'I will unpack all my things,' I said, 'and see how they look, anyway.
Perhaps I'd better hang up my new frocks, I wouldn't like them to get
crushed.'

'I should think Belinda would have unpacked your clothes by this time,'
said grandmamma, 'but no doubt you'll find something to do. But, by the
bye, they may not have lighted a fire in your room, don't stay upstairs
long if you feel chilly, but bring your work down to the library.' I
went upstairs. In the full daylight, though it was a dull morning, I
liked my room even less than the night before. There was nothing in it
bright or fresh, though I daresay it had looked much nicer, years
before, when Cousin Agnes was a little girl, for the cretonne curtains
must once have been very pretty, with bunches of pink roses, which now,
however, were faded, as well as the carpet on the floor, and the paper
on the walls, to an over-all dinginess such as you never see in a
country room even when everything in it is old.

I sat down on a chair and looked about me disconsolately. Belinda had
unpacked my clothes and arranged them after her fashion. My other
possessions were still untouched, but I did not feel as if I cared to do
anything with them.

'I shall never be at home here,' I said to myself, 'but I suppose I must
just try to bear it for the time, for grandmamma's sake.'

Silly child that I was, as if grandmamma ever thought of herself, or her
own likes and dislikes, before what she considered right and good for
me. But the idea of being something of a martyr pleased me. I got out
my work, not my fancy-work--I was in a mood for doing disa