The best dressmaker in Langley had been employed upon the wardrobe of Mrs. Frank, who, in her travelling dress of some stuff goods of a plaided pattern, too large and too bright to be quite in good taste, felt herself perfectly au fait as the mistress of Tracy Park, until she reached Springfield, where Mrs. Grace Atherton, accompanied by a tall, elegant looking young lady, entered the car and took a seat in front of her.  Neither of the ladies noticed her, but she recognized Mrs. Atherton at once and guessed that her companion was the young lady from Collingwood, who, rumor said, was soon to marry her guardian, Mr. Richard Harrington, although he was old enough to be her father.

Dolly scanned both the ladies very closely, noting every article of their costumes from their plain linen collars and cuffs to their quiet dresses of gray, which seemed so much more in keeping with the dusty cars than her buff and purple plaid.

‘I ain’t like them, and never shall be,’ she said to herself, with a bitter sense of her inferiority pressing upon her.  ’I ain’t like them, and never shall be, if I live to be a hundred.  I wish we were not going to be grand.  I shall never get used to it,’ and the hot tears sprang to her eyes as she longed to be back in the kitchen where she had worked so hard.

But Dolly did not know then how readily people can forget the life of toil behind them and adapt themselves to one of luxury and ease; and with her the adaptability commenced in some degree the moment Shannondale station was reached, and she saw the handsome carriage waiting for them.  A carriage finer far and more modern than the one from Collingwood, in which Mrs. Atherton and the young lady took their seats, laughing and chatting so gayly that they did not see the woman in the big plaid who stood watching them with a rising feeling of jealousy and resentment as she thought of Mrs. Atherton, ’She does not even notice me.’

But when the Tracy carriage drew up, Grace Atherton saw and recognized her, and whispered, in an aside to her companion: 

‘For goodness’ sake, Edith, look!  There are the Tracys, our new neighbors.’  Then she bowed to Mrs. Tracy, and said:  ’Ah, I did not know you were on the train.’

‘I sat right behind you,’ was Mrs. Tracy’s rather ungracious reply:  and then, not knowing whether she ought to do it or not, she introduced her husband.

‘Yes, Mr. Tracy—­how do you do?’ was Mrs. Atherton’s response; but she did not in return introduce the young girl, whose dark eyes were scanning the strangers so curiously, and this Dolly took as a slight and inwardly resented it.

But Mrs. Atherton had spoken to her and that was something, and helped to keep her spirits up as she was driven along the turnpike to the entrance of the park.