eldest unmarried lady of the family always occupied the white suite."

A narrow ante-room, a sitting-room, a bed-room, and off it a
sleeping-closet for her maid,--this was the private lodging accorded to
the new daughter of the house. Bessie gazed about, taking in a general
impression of faded, delicate richness, of white and gold and sparse
color, in elegant, antiquated taste, like a boudoir in an old Norman
château that she had visited.

"Mrs. Betts was so thoughtful as to come on by an earlier train to get
unpacked and warn us to be prepared," Macky observed in a respectful
explanatory tone; and then she went on to offer her good wishes to the
young lady she had nursed, in the manner of an old and trusted dependant
of the family. "It is fine weather and a fine time of year, and we hope
and pray all of us, Miss Fairfax, as this will be a blessed
bringing-home for you and our dear master. Most of us was here servants
when Mr. Geoffry, your father, went south. A cheerful, pleasant
gentleman he was, and your mamma as pleasant a lady. And here is Mrs.
Betts to wait on you."

Bessie thanked the old woman, and would have bidden her remain and talk
on about her forgotten parents, but Macky with another curtsey retired,
and Mrs. Betts, calm and peremptory, proceeded to array her young lady
in her prize-day muslin dress, and sent her hastily down stairs under
the guidance of a little page who loitered in the gallery. At the foot
of the stairs a lean, gray-headed man in black received her, and ushered
her into a beautiful octagon-shaped room, all garnished with books and
brilliant with light, where her grandfather was waiting to conduct her
to dinner. So much ceremony made Bessie feel as if she was acting a part
in a play. Since Macky's kind greeting her spirits had risen, and her