“I do remember one thing,” she said, with a shudder, “and I always know if I could remember back of that the dreadful thing would come to me.”  She paused for a moment, then she said, in a shocked voice:  “Mrs. Whitman.”

“What is it?”

“I really do remember that I was in a hospital once when I was little.  I remember the nurses and the little white beds.  That was not dreadful at all.  Everybody petted me, but that was when the trying not to remember began.”

“Don’t you think of it another minute,” Sylvia said, sternly.

“I won’t; I won’t, really.  I—­”

“For goodness’ sake, child, don’t hang that heavy coat over that lace waist—­you’ll ruin it!” cried Sylvia.

Rose removed the coat hurriedly, and resumed, as Sylvia took it out of her hand:  “It was right after that Cousin Eliza Farrel came, and then all that money was left to me by a cousin of father’s, who died.  Then I went to live with Mrs. Wilton and Miss Pamela, and I went to school, and I went abroad, and I always had plenty, and never any trouble, except once in a while being afraid I should remember something dreadful.  Poor Cousin Eliza Farrel taught school all the time.  I never saw her but twice after the first time.  When I grew older I tried to have her come and live with me.  Mrs. Wilton and Miss Pamela have always been very nice to me, but I have never loved them.  I could never seem to get at enough of them to love.”

“You had better put on that now,” said Sylvia, indicating the fluffy mass on the bed.  “I’ll help you.”

“I don’t like to trouble you,” Rose said, almost pitifully, but she stood still while Sylvia, again with that odd sensation of delight, slipped over the young head a lace-trimmed petticoat, and fastened it, and then the tea-gown.  The older woman dressed the girl with exactly the same sensations that she might have experienced in dressing her own baby for the first time.  When the toilet was completed she viewed the result, however, with something that savored of disapproval.

Rose, after looking in the glass at her young beauty in its setting of lace and silk, looked into Sylvia’s face for the admiration which she felt sure of seeing there, and shrank.  “What is the matter?  Don’t I look nice?” she faltered.

Sylvia looked critically at the sleeves of the tea-gown, which were mere puffs of snowy lace, streaming with narrow ribbons, reaching to the elbow.  “Do they wear sleeves like that now in New York?” asked she.

“Why, yes!” replied Rose.  “This tea-gown came home only last week from Madame Felix.”

“They wear sleeves puffed at the bottom instead of the top, and a good deal longer, in East Westland,” said Sylvia.

“Why, this was made from a Paris model,” said Rose, meekly.  Again sophistication was abashed before the confidence of conservatism.

“I don’t know anything about Paris models,” said Sylvia.  “Mrs. Greenaway gets all her patterns right from Boston.”