Mrs. Matson looked shocked, Victor amused, while the sensible driver muttered to himself as he gathered up his reins, “That gal is just what Collingwood needs to keep it from being a dungeon.”

Mrs. Matson had seen Edith at Brier Hill, but this did not prevent her from a close scrutiny as she conducted her to the large, handsome chamber, which Richard in his hasty directions of the previous morning had said was to be hers, and which, with its light, tasteful furniture, crimson curtains, and cheerful blazing fire seemed to the delighted child a second paradise.  Clapping her hands she danced about the apartment, screaming, “It’s the jolliest place I ever was in.”

“What do you mean by that word jolly?” asked Mrs. Matson, with a great deal of dignity; but ere Edith could reply, Victor, who came up with the foreign chest, chimed in, “She means pretty, Madame Matson, and understands French, no doubt.  Parley vous Francais?” and he turned to Edith, who, while recognizing something familiar in the sound, felt sure he was making fun of her and answered back, “Parley voo fool!  I’ll tell Mr. Harrington how you tease me.”

Laughing aloud at her reply, Victor put the chest in its place, made some remark concerning its quaint appearance, and bowed himself from the room, saying to her as he shut the door,

“Bon soir, Mademoiselle.”

“I’ve heard that kind of talk before,” thought Edith, as she began to brush her hair, preparatory to going down to supper, which Mrs. Matson said was waiting.

At the table she met with the old man, who had seen her alight from the carriage, and had asked the mischievous Victor, “Who was the small biped Richard had brought home?”

“That,” said Victor.  “Why, that is Charlie turned into a girl.”  And preposterous as the idea seemed, the old man seized upon it at once, smoothing Edith’s hair when he saw her, tapping her rosy cheeks, calling her Charlie, and muttering to himself of the wonderful process which had transformed his fair-haired boy into a black-haired girl.

Sometimes the utter impossibility of the thing seemed to penetrate even his darkened mind, and then he would whisper, “I’ll make believe it’s Charlie, any way,” so Charlie he persisted in calling her, and Richard encouraged him in this whim, when he found how much satisfaction it afforded the old man to “make believe.”

The day following Edith’s arrival at Collingwood there was a long consultation between Richard and Victor concerning the little girl, about whose personal appearance the former would now know something definite.

“How does Edith Hastings look?” he asked, and after a moment of grave deliberation, Victor replied,

“She has a fat round face, with regular features, except that the nose turns up somewhat after the spitfire order, and her mouth is a trifle too wide.  Her forehead is not very high—­it would not become her style if it were.  Her hair is splendid—­thick, black and glossy as satin, and her eyes,—­there are not words enough either in the French or English language with which to describe her eyes—­they are so bright and deep that nobody can look into them long without wincing.  I should say, sir, if put on oath, there was a good deal of the deuce in her eyes.”