Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/218

200 thrifty Amanda, seeing that Livy was too infatuated to care for cost.

"I'll go the first thing to-morrow and look at the rooms Mrs. Blank recommended to us. This afternoon we will rest and write letters, unless some one comes to call," said Livy, leading her girls to the reading-room, where sleep-inviting chairs, tables supplied with writing materials, and groves of newspapers wooed the stranger to repose. Hardly were they seated, however, than Jeames brought in the card of a friend who had been told when they would arrive, and hastened at once to meet them. How pleasant is the first familiar face one sees in a strange land! Doubly pleasant was Mr. C.'s because he brought hospitable invitations from other friends, kind welcomes, and tickets to several of the art exhibitions then open.

Hardly had he gone, after a half hour's chat, than another card was handed, and the name it bore caused a slight flutter in the dove-cot. A friend of Miss Livy's, in Boston, had sent orders to his brother in London to devote himself to the wandering ladies when they came. They had never met; the poor man didn't care to have his quiet invaded by strange