"I think--about doing it."

"Is it difficult?"

"Yes," said Rotha from the bottom of her heart.

Mrs. Mowbray read the troubled brow, the ingenuous mouth, the oppressed manner; and her soul went forth in sympathy to her little perplexed human sister. But her next words were a departure, and in a different tone.

"You have never been to school before, your aunt tells me?"

"No, ma'am," said Rotha, disappointed somehow.

"Are you getting along pleasantly?"

"Not very pleasantly," Rotha allowed, after a pause.

"Does Miss Blodgett give you too hard work to do?"

"O no, ma'am!" Rotha said with a spark more of spirit. "I have not anything to do. I know it all already."

"You do! Where did you learn it?"

"Mother used to teach me--and then a friend used to teach me."

"What, my dear? It is important that I should know."

"Mother taught me history, and geography, and grammar, and little things.

Then a gentleman taught me more history, and arithmetic, and algebra, and Latin, and natural history--"

"The gentleman was the friend you spoke of?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Do you like to study, Rotha?"

"O yes, ma'am! when it _is_ study, and I can understand it."

"I suppose your aunt did not know about all this home study?"

"She knew nothing about me," said Rotha.

"Then where has your home been, my dear?"

"Here,--for two years past. Before that, it was in the country."

Mrs. Mowbray was silent a bit.

"My dear, I think the first thing you should do should be, to take care of that cold. Will you?"

"I do not know how, ma'am," said Rotha, for the first time lifting her eyes with something like a smile to the lady's face.

"Does Mrs. Busby know that you have taken cold?"

"I do not know, ma'am."

"Will you take some medicine, if I give you some?"

"If you please, ma'am."

Mrs. Mowbray sent a servant for a certain box, and proceeded to choose out a vial which she gave to Rotha, instructing her how to use it.

"And then, some time when we know each other better," she went on, "perhaps you will tell me about that difficulty of duty, and let me see if I can help you."

"O thank you, ma'am!" was spoken so earnestly that Mrs. Mowbray saw the matter must be much on the young girl's heart.

That same evening did Mrs. Mowbray make a call on Mrs. Busby.

She came in with her gracious, sweet, dignified manner, which always put everybody upon his best behaviour in her presence; as gracious as if she had come for the sole pleasure of a talk with Mrs. Busby; as sweet as if she had had no other object in coming but to give her and her family pleasure. And so she talked. She talked public news and political questions with Mr. Busby, with full intelligence, but with admirable modesty; she bewitched him out of his silence and dryness into being social and conversible; she delighted him with his own unwonted performance. With Mrs. Busby she talked Antoinette, for whom she had at the same time brought a charming little book, which compliment flattered the whole family. She talked Antoinette and Antoinette's interests, but not Antoinette alone; with a blessed kind of grace she brought in among the other things relations and anecdotes the drift and bearing of which was away from vanity and toward soul health; stories which took her hearers for the moment at least out of the daily and the trivial and the common, into the lofty and the n.o.ble and the everlasting. Even Mr. Busby forgot his papers and cases and waked up to human interests and social gentleness; and even Mrs. Busby let the lines of her lips relax, and her eyes glistened with something warmer than a steely reflection. Antoinette bloomed with smiles. Rotha was not in the room.

And not till she was drawing up her fur around her, preparatory to departure, did Mrs. Mowbray refer to the fourth member of the family.

Then she said,

"How is your niece, Mrs. Busby? Miss Carpenter?"

"Quite well," Mrs. Busby answered graciously. "I believe she is at her books."

"How does she like going to school?"

"I am afraid I can hardly say. Netta, how does Rotha enjoy her school life?"

"I don't know," said Antoinette. "She doesn't enjoy anything, I should say."

The tone of neither question nor answer escaped the watchful observation of the visiter.

"I think you said she had had no advantages?"

"None whatever, I should say; not what we would call advantages. I suppose she has learned a few common things."

"She is an orphan?"

Mrs. Busby a.s.sented. "Lost her mother last summer."

"I should like to have her more under my own eye than is possible as she is now; a mere day scholar. What do you say to letting her become a member of my family? Of course," added Mrs. Mowbray graciously, "I should not propose to you to charge yourself with any additional burden on her account. As she is an orphan, I should make no difference because of receiving her into my family. I have a professional ambition to gratify, and I like to be able to carry out my plans in every detail. I could do better for Antoinette, if you would let me have _her_ altogether; but I suppose that is not to be thought of."

Mrs. Busby wore an air of deliberation. Mr. Busby was understood to mutter something about "very handsome."

"Will you let me have Antoinette?" said the lady smiling. "I think it would do her no harm."

"Antoinette must content herself at home," Antoinette's mother replied.