These two girls were very much alike, but one wore a red cloak and the other a blue one.  In spite of the fact that they were somewhat bloused and a little grimy, and their pretty little noses were now nipped red by the icy morning, they looked attractive as they stood, pressing their handkerchiefs to their mouths and bending with laughter.  The extent of their mirth was proportioned to their youth and excitement, not to the circumstances which called it forth.

The train they had left now moved off.  Most of the other passengers who had alighted with them had taken themselves away in various directions, as travellers are apt to do, without any one else noticing exactly what had become of them.

Sophia, with the child in her arms, made her way to a mean waiting-room, and thither the children followed her.  The mother, having at last ascertained the train would be ready in the course of time, soon came in also, and the father and brother, hearing it would not be ready for at least a quarter of an hour, went away to see the town.

There was a stove burning hotly in the small waiting-room.  The only other furniture was a bench all round the wall.  The family, that had entered somewhat tumultuously, almost filled it.  There was only one other traveller there, a big girl with a shawl over her head and a bundle under her arm.  When Sophia had come into the room alone with the baby, she had asked the girl one or two questions, and been answered civilly enough; but when the rest of the family followed, the girl relapsed into silence, and, after regarding them for a little while, she edged her way out of the room.

Mrs. Rexford, who in the excitement of change and bustle was always subject to being struck with ideas which would not have occurred to her mind at other times, suddenly remembered now that they were dependent upon the resources of the new country for domestic service, and that she had heard that no chance of securing a good servant must be lost, as they were very rare.  Stating her thought hastily to Sophia, and darting to the narrow door without waiting for a reply, she stretched out her head with an ebullition of registry-office questions.

“My good girl!” she cried, “my good girl!”

The girl came back nearer the door and stood still.

“Do you happen to know of a girl about your age who can do kitchen work?”

“I don’t know any one here.  I’m travelling.”

“But perhaps you would do for me yourself”—­this half aside—­“Can you make a fire, keep pots clean, and scour floors?”

“Yes.”  She did not express any interest in her assent.

“Where are you going?  Would you not like to come with me and enter my service?  I happen to be in need of just such a girl as you.”

No answer.

“She doesn’t understand, mamma,” whispered the grey-eyed girl in a short frock, who, having wedged herself beside her mother in the narrow doorway, was the only one who could see or hear the colloquy.  “Speak slower to the poor thing.”