"Tell the young lady all about it, Connie," said her mother.

But Connie was very reluctant to tell. She was very shy, and clung to her
mother, and hid her face in her ample dress; and though presently she was
beguiled by Mary's voice, and in a short time came to her side, and clung
to her as she had clung to Mrs. Turner, she still kept her secret to
herself. They were all very kind to Mary, the elder girls standing round
in a respectful circle looking at her, while their mother exhorted them
to "take a pattern" by Miss Vivian. The novelty, the awe which she
inspired, the real kindness about her, ended in overcoming in Mary's
young mind the first miserable impression of such a return to her home.
It gave her a kind of pleasure to write to Mrs. Bowyer that she had found
employment, and had thought it better to accept it at once. "Don't be
angry with me; and I think you will understand me," she said. And then
she gave herself up to the strange new scene.

The "ways" of the large simple-minded family, homely, yet kindly, so
transformed Lady Mary's graceful old rooms that they no longer looked the
same place. And when Mary sat down with them at the big heavy-laden
table, surrounded with the hum of so large a party, it was impossible for
her to believe that everything was not new about her. In no way could the
saddening recollections of a home from which the chief figure had
disappeared, have been more completely broken up. Afterwards Mrs. Turner
took her aside, and begged to know which was Mary's old room, "for I
should like to put you there, as if nothing had happened." "Oh, do not
put me there!" Mary cried, "so much has happened." But this seemed a
refinement to the kind woman, which it was far better for her young guest
not to "yield" to. The room Mary had occupied had been next to her
godmother's, with a door between, and when it turned out that Connie,