young woman. I'm never deceived in character."

Vaunting her penetration, she accompanied Rhoda to Dahlia's chamber,
bidding her sleep speedily, or that when her sister came they would be
talking till the cock crowed hoarse.

"There's a poultry-yard close to us?" said Rhoda; feeling less at home
when she heard that there was not.

The night was quiet and clear. She leaned her head out of the window,
and heard the mellow Sunday evening roar of the city as of a sea at ebb.
And Dahlia was out on the sea. Rhoda thought of it as she looked at the
row of lamps, and listened to the noise remote, until the sight of stars
was pleasant as the faces of friends. "People are kind here," she
reflected, for her short experience of the landlady was good, and a young
gentleman who had hailed a cab for her at the station, had a nice voice.
He was fair. "I am dark," came a spontaneous reflection. She undressed,
and half dozing over her beating heart in bed, heard the street door
open, and leaped to think that her sister approached, jumping up in her
bed to give ear to the door and the stairs, that were conducting her joy
to her: but she quickly recomposed herself, and feigned sleep, for the
delight of revelling in her sister's first wonderment. The door was
flung wide, and Rhoda heard her name called by Dahlia's voice, and then
there was a delicious silence, and she felt that Dahlia was coming up to
her on tiptoe, and waited for her head to be stooped near, that she might
fling out her arms, and draw the dear head to her bosom. But Dahlia came
only to the bedside, without leaning over, and spoke of her looks, which
held the girl quiet.

"How she sleeps! It's a country sleep!" Dahlia murmured. "She's