Rose brightened, and smiled at her like a pleased child.  “Oh, I am very tired!” she cried.  “I must confess to being very tired, indeed.  The train was so fast.  I came on the limited from New York, you know, and the soft-coal smoke made me ill, and I couldn’t eat anything, even if there had been anything to eat which wasn’t all full of cinders.  I shall be so very glad of a bath and an opportunity to change my gown.  I shall have to beg you to allow your maid to assist me a little.  My own maid got married last week, unexpectedly, and I have not yet replaced her.”

“I don’t keep a hired girl,” said Sylvia.  She looked, as Henry had, both angry and abashed.  “I will fasten up your dress in the neck if that is what you want,” said she.

“Oh, that is all,” Rose assured her, and she looked abashed, too.  Even sophistication is capable of being daunted before utterly unknown conditions.  She followed Sylvia meekly up-stairs, and Henry and Horace carried the trunk, which had been left on the front walk, up after them.

Leander Willard was a man of exceeding dignity.  He was never willing to carry a trunk even into a house.  “If the folks that the trunk belongs to can’t heft it in after I’ve brought it up from the depot, let it set out,” he said.  “I drive a carriage to accommodate, but I ain’t no porter.”

Therefore, Henry and Horace carried up the trunk and unstrapped it.  Rose looked around her with delight.  “Oh, what a lovely room!” she cried.

“It gets the morning sun,” said Sylvia.  “The paper is a little mite faded, but otherwise it’s just as good as it ever was.”

“It is perfectly charming,” said Rose.  She tugged at the jewelled pins in her hat.  Sylvia stood watching her.  When she had succeeded in removing the hat, she thrust her slender fingers through her fluff of blond hair and looked in the glass.  Her face appeared over the bunch of flowers, as Sylvia had thought of its doing.  Rose began to laugh.  “Good gracious!” she said.  “For all I took such pains to wash my face in the lavatory, there is a great black streak on my left cheek.  Sometimes I think the Pullmans are dirtier than the common coaches—­that more soft-coal smoke comes in those large windows; don’t you think so?”

Sylvia colored, but her honesty was fearless.  “I don’t know what a Pullman is,” she said.

Rose stared for a second.  “Oh, a parlor-car,” she said.  “A great many people always say parlor-car.”  Rose was almost apologetic.

“Did you come in a parlor-car?” asked Sylvia.  Rose wondered why her voice was so amazed, even aggressive.

“Why, of course; I always do,” said Rose.

“I’ve seen them go through here,” said Sylvia.

“Do you mind telling me where my bath-room is?” asked Rose, looking vaguely at the doors.  She opened one.  “Oh, this is a closet!” she cried.  “What a lovely large one!”

“There ain’t such a thing as a bath-room in this house,” replied Sylvia.  “Abrahama White, your aunt, had means, but she always thought she had better ways for her money than putting in bath-rooms to freeze up in winter and run up plumbers’ bills.  There ain’t any bath-room, but there’s plenty of good, soft rain-water from the cistern in your pitcher on the wash-stand there, and there’s a new cake of soap and plenty of clean towels.”