into a roomy white-painted hall.

"We will go straight through to the back steps," she said. "Mamma is
sure to be sitting there; she always sits there till the first frost;
she says it makes her think of the country. How different people are! I
don't want to think of the country, but I'm never allowed to forget it
for a moment. Mamma is so fond of those steps and the garden."

There, to be sure, Mrs. Redding was found sitting in a wicker-work
chair under the shade of the grapevines, with a big basket of mending
at her side. It looked so homely and country-like to find a person
thus occupied in the middle of a busy city, that Katy's heart warmed
to her at once.

Mrs. Redding was a fair little woman, scarcely taller than Rose and very
much like her. She gave Katy a kind welcome.

"You do not seem like a stranger," she said, "Rose has told us so much
about you and your sister. Sylvia will be very disappointed not to see
you. She went off to make some visits when we broke up in the country,
and is not to be home for three weeks yet."

Katy was disappointed, too, for she had heard a great deal about Sylvia
and had wished very much to meet her. She was shown her picture, from
which she gathered that she did not look in the least like Rose; for
though equally fair, her fairness was of the tall aquiline type, quite
different from Rose's dimpled prettiness. In fact, Rose resembled her
mother, and Sylvia her father; they were only alike in little
peculiarities of voice and manner, of which a portrait did not enable
Katy to judge.