She charged it all presently with the certainty of intuition upon her aunt. For in her Rotha had not one particle of trust. She had received at her hands no unkind treatment, (what was the matter with the mantua- makers, though?) she had heard from her lips no unkind word; yet both would not have put such a distance between them as this want of trust did. It was Rotha's nature to despise where she could not trust; and here unhappily there was also the complication of fear. Somehow, she was sure, her aunt had done it; she had prevented Mr. Digby from seeing her; and now he was away, and how could she tell but cunning arrangements would be potent enough to keep him from seeing her evermore? Any reason for such machinations Rotha indeed failed to divine; why her aunt should desire to keep them apart, was a mere mystery; all the same, she had done it; and the chances were she would choose to do it permanently. Mr. Digby had been duped, or baffled somehow; else he would never have left the country without seeing his charge. She did not know before that Mr. Digby could be duped, or baffled; but if once or twice, why not again.
She would write to him. Ah, she had not his address, that he was to have given her.Hewould write. Yes, but somebody else would get the letters. Rotha was of anything but a suspicious disposition, yet now suspicion after suspicion came in her mind. The possible moving cause for her aunt's action was entirely beyond her imagination; the action itself and the drift of it she discerned clearly. There rose in her a furious opposition and dislike towards her aunt, a storm of angry abhorrence. And yet, she was in Mrs. Busby's care, under her protection, and also—in her power. Rotha gnashed her teeth, mentally, as she reviewed the situation. But by degrees grief overweighed even anger and fear; grief so cutting, so desolating, so crushing, as the girl had hardly known in her life before; an agony of anguish which held her awake till late in the night; till feeling and sense were blunted with exhaustion, and in her misery she slept.
When the day came, Rotha awaked to a cold, dead sense of the state of things; the ashes of the fire that had burned so fiercely the night before; desolate and dreary as the ashes of a fire always are. She revolved while she was dressing her plan of action. She must have certain information from Mrs. Busby herself. She was certain indeed of what she had heard; but she must hear it from somebody besides Lesbia, and she must not betray Lesbia. She thought it all over, and went down stairs trembling in the excitement and the pain of what she had to do.
It was winter now in truth. The basement room where the family took their meals in ordinary, was a very warm and comfortable apartment; handsomely furnished; only Rotha always hated it for being half underground. The fire was burning splendidly; Mr. Busby sat in his easy chair at the side of the hearth next the light; Mrs. Busby was at the table preparing breakfast. Rotha stood by the fire and thought how she should begin. The sun shone very bright outside the windows. But New York had become a desert.
"Mr. Busby, will you come to the table?" said his wife. "Rotha, I am going to see about your cloak to-day."
Rotha could not say "thank you." She began to eat, for form's sake.
"What are you going to get her, mother?" Antoinette enquired.
"You can come along and see."
"Aunt Serena," said Rotha, trying to speak un-concernedly, "what has become of Mr. Digby—Mr. Southwode, I mean."
"I do not know, my dear," the lady answered smoothly.
"Why haven't I seen him?"
"My dear, you have not seen anybody. Some day I hope you will be able; but I begin to despair of the dress-makers."
"If my tailor served me so, I should give him up," said Mr. Busby's quick, husky utterance.
"Yes, papa, but you wouldn't, if there was only one tailor you liked."
"Isn't there more than one mantua-maker for all this big city?"
"My dear, Miss Hubbell suits me, and is uncommonly reasonable, for the quality of her work; and she has so much custom, we cannot get her without speaking long beforehand."
"Why don't you speak, then?"
"When was Mr. Digby—Mr. Southwode here, aunt Serena?" Rotha began again.
"A few nights ago. I do not recollect. Mr. Busby, as you go down town will you stop at Dubois's and order the piano tuner? The piano is quite out of tune. And I wish you would order me a bag of coffee, if you say you can get it more reasonably at your down town place."
"Very well, my dear." The words used to amuse Rotha, they rolled out so, brisk and sharp, like the discharge from a gun. To-day she was impatient.
"Aunt Serena, I have been wanting to see Mr. Southwode very much."
No answer. Mrs. Busby attended to her breakfast as if she did not hear.
"When can I?" Rotha persisted.
"I am sure, I cannot say. Mr. Busby, I will trouble you for a little of that sausage."
"This sausage has too much pepper in it, mamma."
"And too little of something else," added Mr. Busby.
"Of what, Mr. Busby?"
"That I do not know, my dear; it belongs to your department."
"But even the Chaldean magicians could not interpret the dream that was not told to them," Mrs. Busby suggested, with smiling satisfaction. "How can I have the missing quality supplied, if you cannot tell me what it is you miss?"
"You can divine, my dear, quite as well as the Chaldean magicians."
"Then if that is true, aunt Serena," Rotha put in desperately, "will you please tell me where Mr. Southwode is?"
"Her divining rod is not long enough for that," said Mr. Busby. "Mr.Southwode is on the high seas somewhere, on his way to England."
"On the high seas!" Rotha repeated slowly.
"There was no occasion to mention that, Mr. Busby," said his wife. "Mr.Southwode's movements are nothing to us."
"Seem to be something to Rotha," said the gentleman.
"You knew that," said Rotha, steadily. "Why did you keep it from me, auntSerena?"
"I did not keep it from you," Mrs. Busby returned, bridling. "The papers are open. I did not speak of it, because Mr. Southwode and his affairs are no concern of yours, or of mine, and therefore are not interesting."
"Of yours? No! But they are all I have in the world!" said Rotha, with fire in her cheeks and in her eyes. Mrs. Busby went on with her breakfast and avoided looking at her. But Antoinette cried out.
"All she has in the world! Mr. Southwode! Pretty well for a young lady!Mamma, do you hear that? Mr. Southwode is all she has in the world."
"Once hearing a silly thing is quite enough. You need not repeat it,Antoinette."
"Didn't he come to say good bye?" asked Rotha, her eyes blazing.
"I do not answer questions put in that tone," said Mrs. Busby, coldly.
"I know he did," said Rotha. "What did he go to England for, Mr. Busby?"
"Mr. Busby," said his wife, "I request you not to reply. Rotha is behaving improperly, and must be left to herself till she is better- mannered."
"I don't know, my dear," said the gentleman, rising and gathering his newspapers together, previous to taking his departure. "'Seems to me that's an open question—public, as you say. I do not see why you should not tell Rotha that Mr. Southwode is called home by the illness and probable death of his father. Good-morning, my dear!"
"Did you ever see anything like papa!" said Antoinette with an appealing look at her mother, as the door closed. "He don't mind you a bit, mamma."
Mrs. Busby's slight air of the head was more significant than words.
"He is the only fraction of a friend I have in this house," said Rotha. "But you needn't think, aunt Serena, that you can do what you like with Mr. Southwode and me. I belong to him, not to you; and he will come back, and then he will take me under his own care, and I will have nothing to do with you the rest of my life. I know you now. I thought I did before, and now I know. You let mamma want everything in the world; and now perhaps you will let me; but Mr. Southwode will take care of me, sooner or later, and I can wait, for I know him too."
Rotha left the room, unconsciously with the air of a tragedy queen. Alas, it was tragedy enough with her!
"Mamma!" said Antoinette. "Did you ever see anything like that?"
"I knew it was in her," Mrs. Busby said, keeping her composure in appearance.
"What will you do with her?"
"Let her alone a little," said Mrs. Busby icily. "Let her come to her senses."
"Will you go to get her cloak to-day?"
"I don't know why I should give myself any trouble about her. I will let her wait till she comes to her senses and humbles herself to me."
"Do you think she ever will?"
"I don't care, whether she does or not. It is all the same to me. You let her alone too, Antoinette."
"Iwill," said Antoinette. "I don't like spitfires. High! what a powder-magazine she is, mamma! Her eyes are enough to set fire to things sometimes."
"Don't use such an inelegant word, Antoinette. 'High!' How can you? Where did you get it?"
"You send me to school, mamma, to learn; and so I pick up a few things.But do you think it is true, what she says about Mr. Southwode?"
"What?"
"That he will come and take her away from you."
"Not if I don't choose it,"
"And you will not choose it, will you?"
"Don't be foolish, Antoinette. Rotha will never see Mr. Southwode again.She has defied me, and now she may take the consequences."
"But hewillcome back, mamma? He said so."
"I hope he will."
"Then he'll find Rotha, and she'll tell him her own story."
"Will you trust me to look after my own affairs? And get yourself ready to go out with me immediately."
Rotha climbed the three flights of stairs from the breakfast room, feeling that her aunt's house, and the world generally, had become a desert to her. She went up to her own little room, being very sure that neither in the warm dressing room on the second floor, nor indeed in any other, would she be welcome, or even perhaps tolerated. How should she be, after what had taken place? And how could she breathe, anyhow, in any atmosphere where her aunt was? Imprudent? had she been imprudent? Very possibly; she had brought matters to an unmanageable point, inconvenient for all parties; and she had broken through the cold reserve which it had been her purpose to maintain, and lost sight wholly of the principles by which it had Been Mr. Digby's wish that she should be guided. Rotha had a mental recognition of all this; but passion met it with simple defiance. She was not weeping; the fire at her heart scorched all tender moisture, though it would not keep her blood warm. The day was wintry indeed. Rotha pulled the coverlet off her bed and wrapped herself in it, and sat down to think. .
Thinking, is too good a name to give to what for some time went on in Rotha's mind. She was rather looking at the procession of images which passion called up and sent succeeding one another through the chambers of her brain. It was a very dreary time with the girl. Her aunt's treachery, her cousin's coldness, Mr. Digby's pitiless desertion, her lonely, lonely place in the world, her unendurable dependence on people that did not love her; for just now her dependence on Mr. Digby had failed; it all rushed through and through Rotha's head, for all the world like the changing images in a kaleidoscope, which are but new combinations, eternally renewed, of the same changeless elements. At first they went through Rotha's head in a kind of storm; gradually, for very weariness, the storm laid itself, and cold reality and sober reason had the field.
But what could reason do with the reality? In other words, what step was now to take? What was to be done? Rotha could not see. She was at present at open war with her aunt. Yes, she allowed, that had not been exactly prudent; but it would have had to come, sooner or later. She could not live permanently on false social grounds; as well break through them at once. But what now? What ground did she expect to stand and move on now? She could not leave her aunt's house, for she had no other home to go to. How was she to stay in it, if she made no apology or submission? And I cannot do that, said the girl to herself. Apology indeed! It is she who ought to humble herself to me, for it is she who has wronged me, bitterly, meanly. Passion renewed the storm, for a little while. But by degrees Rotha came to be simply cold and tired and miserable. What to do she did not know.
Nobody was at home to luncheon. She knew this, and got some refreshment from Lesbia, and also warmed herself through at the dressing-room fire. But when the door bell announced the return of her aunt and cousin, she sped away up stairs again and wrapped herself in her coverlet, and waited. She waited till it grew dark. She was not called to dinner, and saw that she would not be. Rotha fed upon indignation, which furnished her a warm meal; and then somebody knocked softly at her door. Lesbia had brought a plate with some cold viands.
"I'll fetch it agin by and by," she whispered. "I'm allays agin seein' folks starve. What's the matter, Miss Rotha?"
Lesbia had heard one side down stairs, and impartially was willing now to hear the other. Rotha's natural dignity however never sought such solace of her troubles.
"Thank you, Lesbia," she simply said. "My aunt is vexed with me."
"She's vexed worse'n ever I seen her. What you gone and done, MissRotha?"
"It can't be helped," said Rotha. "She and I do not think alike."
"It's convenientest not to quarrel with Mrs. Busby if you live in the house with her," said Lesbia. "She's orful smart, she is. But she and me allays thinks just alike, and so I get on first rate with her."
"That's a very good way, for you," said Rotha.
She went to bed, dulled that night with pain and misery, and slept the night through. When the light of a bright Sunday morning awoke her, she opened her eyes again to the full dreariness of her situation. So terribly dreary and cold at heart Rotha had never felt. Deserted by her one friend—and with that thought Rotha broke down and cried as if she would break her heart. But hearts are tough, and do not break so easily. The necessity of getting dressed before breakfast obliged her to check her passion of grief and dry her eyes; thoughthatshe did not; the tears kept dripping on her hands and into her basin of water; but she finished dressing, and then queried what she should do about going to the breakfast-table. She was very uncertain whether she would be allowed there. However, it was disagreeable, but the attempt must be made; she must find out whether it was war to the knife or not. And although the thought choked her, she was hungry; and be it the bread of charity, and her aunt's charity to boot, she could not get along without it. She went down stairs, rather late. The family were at breakfast.
Her aunt did not look at her. Antoinette stared at her. Mr. Busby, as usual, took no notice. Rotha came up to the side of the table and stood there, changing colour somewhat.
"I do not know," she said, "if I am to be allowed to come to breakfast. I came to see."
Mrs. Busby made no answer.
"Polite—" said Antoinette.
"Eh?" said Mr. Busby looking up from a letter, "what's that? Sit down, my dear, you are late. Hold your plate—"
As nobody interfered, Rotha did so and sat down to her meal. Mrs. Busby said nothing whatever. Perhaps she felt she had pushed matters pretty far; perhaps she avoided calling her husband's attention any further to the subject. She made no remark about anything, till Mr. Busby had left the room; nor then immediately. When she did speak, it was in her hard, measured way.
"As you present yourself before me this morning, Rotha, I may hope that you are prepared to make me a proper apology."
"What have I done, aunt Serena?"
"Do you ask me? You have forgotten strangely the behaviour due from you to me."
"I did not forget it—" said Rotha slowly.
"Will you give me an excuse for your conduct, then?"
"Yes," said Rotha. "Because, aunt Serena, you had forgotten so utterly the treatment due from you to me."
Mrs. Busby flushed a little. Still she commanded herself She always did.
"Mamma, she's pretty impudent!" said Antoinette.
"I always make allowances, and you must learn to do so, Antoinette, for people who have never learned any manners."
Rotha was stung, but she confessed to herself that passion had made her overleap the bounds which she had purposed, and Mr. Digby had counselled, her behaviour should observe. So she was now silent.
"However," Mrs. Busby went on, "it is quite necessary that any one living in my family and sheltered by my roof, should pay me the respect which they owe to me."
"I will always pay all I owe," said Rotha deliberately, "so far as I have anything to pay it with."
"And in case the supply fails," said Mrs. Busby, her voice trembling a little, "don't you think you had better avoid going deeper into debt?"
"What do I owe you, aunt Serena?" asked the girl.
Mrs. Busby saw the gathering fire in the dark eyes, and did not desire to bring on another explosion. She assumed an impassive air, looked away from Rotha, rose and began to put her cups together on the tea-board, and rang for the tub of hot water.
"I leave that to your own sense to answer," she said. "But if you are to stay in my house, I beg you to understand, you must behave yourself to me with all proper civility and good manners. Else I will turn you into the street."
Rotha recognized the necessity for a certain decency of exterior form at least, if she and her aunt were to continue under one roof; and so, though her tongue was ready with an answer, she did not at once make it. She rose, and was about quitting the room, when the fire in her blazed up again.
"It is where mother would have been, if it had not been for other friends," she said.
She opened the door as she spoke, and toiled up the long stairs to her room; for when the heart is heavy somehow one's feet are not light. She went to her cold little room and sat down. The sunshine was very bright outside, and church bells were ringing. No going to church for her, nor would there have been in any case; she had no garments fit to go out in. Would she ever have them? Rotha queried. The church bells hurt her heart; she wished they would stop ringing; they sounded clear and joyous notes, and reminded her of happy times past. Medwayville, her father, her mother, peace and honour, and latterly Mr. Southwode, and all his kindness and teaching and his affection. It was too much. The early Sunday morning was spent by Rotha in an agony of weeping and lamentation; silent, however; she made no noise that could be heard down stairs where Mrs. Busby and Antoinette were dressing to go to church. The intensity of her passion again by and by wore itself out; and when the last bells had done ringing, and the patter of feet was silenced in the streets, Rotha crept down to the empty dressing room, feeling blue and cold, to warm herself. She shivered, she stretched her arms to the warmth of the fire, she was chilled to the core, with a chill that was yet more mental than physical Alone, and stripped of everything, and everybody gone that she loved. What was she to do? how was she to live? She was struggling with a burden of realities and trying to make them seem unreal, trying for an outlook of hope or comfort in the darkness of her prospects. In vain; Mr. Digby was gone, and with him all her strength and her reliance. He was gone; nobody could tell when he would come back; perhaps never; and she could not write to him, and his letters would never get to her. Never; she was sure of it. Mrs. Busby would never let them get further than her own hands. So everything was worse than she had ever feared it could be.
Sitting there on the rug before the fire, and with her teeth chattering, partly from real cold and partly from the nervous exhaustion, there came to her suddenly something Mr. Digby had once said to her. If she should come to see a time when she would have nobody to depend on; when her world would be wholly a desert;allgone that she had loved or trusted. It has come now!—she thought to herself; even he, who I thought would never fail me, he has failed. He said he would not fail me, but he has failed. I am alone; I have nobody any more. Then he told me——
She went back and gathered it up in her memory, what he had told her to do then. Then if she would seek the Lord, seek him with her whole heart, she would find him; and finding him, she would find good again. The poor, sore heart caught at the promise. I will seek him, she suddenly said; I will seek till I find; I have nothing else now.
The resolve was as earnest as it was sudden. Doubtless the way had been preparing for it, in her mother's and her father's teachings and prayers and example, and in Mr. Digby's words and kindness and his example; she remembered now the look of his eyes as he told her the Lord Jesus would do all she trusted him to do. Yet the determination was extremely sudden to Rotha herself. And as the meeting of two currents, whether in the waters or in the air or the human mind, generally raises a commotion, so this flowing in of light and promise upon the midst of her despair almost broke Rotha's heart. The tears shed this time, however, though abundant, were less bitter; and Rotha raised her head and dashed the drops away, and ran up stairs to fetch her mother's Bible and begin her quest upon the spot. Lying there upon the rug in her aunt's dressing room, she began it.
She began with a careful consideration of the three marked passages. The one in John especially held her. "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me."—I do not love Him, thought Rotha, for I do not know Him; but I must begin, I suppose, with keeping his commandments. Now the thing is, to find out what.—
She opened her book at hap hazard, lying on the rug there with it before her. A leaf or two aimlessly turned,—and her eye fell on these words:
"And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity and out of darkness. The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel."
I am poor enough, thought Rotha, while soft warm tears streamed afresh from her eyes;—and deaf enough, and blind enough too, I have been; but meek?—I guess I'm not meek.
Turning over a leaf or two, her eyes were caught by the thirty fifth chapter of Isaiah, and she read it all. There was the promise for the deaf and the blind again; Rotha applied that to herself unhesitatingly; but the rest of the chapter she could not well understand. Except one thing; that the way of the blessed people is a "way of holiness." And also the promise in the last verse, which seemed to be an echo of those words of Jesus—"He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." And Rotha was so hungry, and so thirsty! She paused just there, and covering her eyes with her hand, made one of the first real prayers, perhaps, she had ever prayed. It was a dumb stretching out of her hands for the food she was starving for; not much more; but it was eagerly put in the name of Christ, and such cries he hears. She turned over a few more leaves and stopped.
"I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house."
Who could that be? Rotha knew enough to guess that it could mean but one, even the great Deliverer. And a little further on she saw other words which encouraged her.
"I will bring the blind by a way that they know not; I will lead them in paths they have not known; I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them."
So many promises to the blind, Rotha said to herself; and that means me. I don't think I am meek, but I know I am blind.—Then on the very next leaf she read—
"I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins; return unto me; for I have redeemed thee."
Redeemed, that means, bought back, said Rotha; and I know who has done it, too. I suppose that is how he delivered the prisoners out of the prison house. Well, if he has redeemed me, I ought to belong to him,—and I will! I do not know much, but there is another promise; he will bring the blind by a way they have not known, and will make darkness light before them. Now what I have to do,—yes, I am redeemed, and Iwillbe redeemed; and I belong to him who has redeemed me, of course. "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them"—what are they?
She thought she must look in the New Testament for them; and not knowing where to look in particular, she turned to the first chapter. It did not seem to contain much that concerned her, till she came to the 21st verse.
"And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins."
Rotha put that together with the "way of holiness," but it seemed to her unspeakably wonderful. In fact, it was hard to believe. Saveherfrom her sins? from pride and anger and self-will and self-pleasing? why, they were inborn; they were in her very blood; they came like the breath of her breathing. Could she be saved from them? Mr. Digby was like that. But a Rotha without anger and pride and self-will—would she know herself? would it be Rotha? and was she quite sure that she desired to be the subject of such a transformation? Never mind; desire it or not, this was the "way of holiness," and there was no other. But about commandments?—
She read the second chapter with an interest that hitherto she had never given to it; so also the third, without finding yet what she was looking for. The second verse, John the Baptist's cry to repentance, she answered by saying that shehadrepented; that step was taken; what next? In the fourth chapter she paused at the 10th verse. I see, she said, one is not to do wrong even for the whole world; but what must I do that isright?She startled a little at the 19th verse; concluded however that the command to "follow him" was directed only to the people of that time, the apostles and others, who were expected literally to leave their callings and accompany Jesus in his wanderings. The beatitudes were incipient commands, perhaps. But she did not quite understand most of them. At the 16th verse she came to a full pause.
"Let your light so shine"—That is like Mr. Digby. Everything he does is just beautiful, and shews one how one ought to be. Then according to that, I must not do any wrong at all!—
ust here Rotha heard the latch key in the house door, and knew the family were coming home from church. She seized her Bible and ran off up stairs. There it was necessary to wrap herself in her coverlet again; and shivering a little she put her book on the bed side and knelt beside it. But presently poor Rotha was brought up short in her studies. She had been saying comfortably to herself, reading v. 22,—I have not been "angry without a cause"; and I have not called anybody "Raca," or "Thou fool"; but then it came—
"If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberestthat thy brother hath ought against thee, leave there thy gift… go thy way… first be reconciled… then offer thy gift."
Rotha felt as if she had got a blow. Her aunt had "something against her." But, said Rotha to herself, not the thousandth part of whatIhave against her. No matter, conscience objected; her charge remains the same, although you may have a larger to set off against it. Then am I to go and make it up with her? I can't do it, said Rotha. I do not wish to do it. I wish her to know that I am angry, and justly angry; if I were to go and ask her pardon for my way of speaking, she would just think I want to make it up with her so that she may get me my new cloak and other things.? And Rotha turned hot and cold at the thought. Yet conscience pertinaciously presented the injunction?"first be reconciled to thy brother." It was a dead lock. Rotha felt that her prayers would not be acceptable or accepted, while a clear duty was knowingly left undone; and do it she would not. At least not now; and how ever, that she could not see. Her heart which had been a little lightened, sank down like lead. O, thought she, is it so hard a thing to be a Christian? Did Mr. Digby ever have such a fight, I wonder, before he got to be as he is now? He does not look as if he ever had fights. But then he is strong.
And Rotha was weak. She knew it. She let her eye run down the page a little further; and it came to these words—
"If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee."…"If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off."…
Duty was plain enough. This luxury of anger at her aunt was a forbidden pleasure; it must be given up; and at the thought, Rotha clutched it the more warmly. So the bell rang for dinner, always early on Sunday. She would rather not have gone down, and did linger; then she heard it rung the second time and knew that was to summon the stragglers. She went down. The rest were at table.
"Mamma," Antoinette was saying, "you must get a new bonnet."
"Why?"
"Mrs. Mac Jimpsey has got a new one, and it is handsomer than yours."
"What does that signify?" was asked in Mr. Busby's curious husky tones and abrupt utterance.
"O papa, you don't understand such things."
"Nor you neither. You are a little goose."
"Papa! don't you want mamma and me to be as nice as anybody?"
"You are."
"O but Mrs. Mac Jimpsey's bonnet was fifty times handsomer than mamma's.Youdon't know, but it was."
"Nevertheless, your mamma is fifty times handsomer than Mrs. MacJimpsey."
"O papa! butthatisn't the thing."
"And Mr. Mac Jimpsey's pocket is some fifty dollars or so emptier than mine. You see, we have a hundred times the advantage, to say the least."
"Papa, gentlemen never understand such things."
"Better for them if the ladies didn't."
"My dear," said Mrs. Busby smoothly, "you do not consider dress a subject of small importance?"
"I have no occasion to think about it, my dear, I am aware."
"Why do you say that, Mr. Busby?"
"It receives such exhaustive consideration from you."
"It cannot be done without consideration; not properly. Good dressing is a distinction; and it requires a careful regard to circumstances, to keep up one's appearance properly."
"What do you think about it, Rotha?" said Mr. Busby.
Rotha was startled, and flushed all over. To answer was not easy; and yet answer she must. "I think it is comfortable to be well dressed," she said.
"Well dressed! but there is the question. What do you mean by 'well dressed'? You see, Antoinette means by it simply, handsomer things than Mrs. Mac Jimpsey."
Antoinette pouted, much incensed at this speech and at the appeal to Rotha generally; and Mrs. Busby brought her lips into firmer compression; though neither spoke. Mr. Busby went on, rather kindly.
"What's the matter, that you didn't go to church to-day? Is Antoinette's bonnet handsomer than yours?"
"It ought to be, Mr. Busby," said the lady of the house here.
"Ought it? Rotha might put in a demurrer. May I ask why?"
"Circumstances are different, Mr. Busby. That is what I said. Proper dressing must keep a due regard to circumstances."
"Mine among the rest. Now I don't see why a bonnet fit for Antoinette's cousin isn't good enough for Antoinette; and the surplus money in my pocket."
"And you would have your daughter dress like a poor girl?"
"Couldn't do better, in my opinion. That's the way not to become one.Fetch me your bonnet, Rotha, and let us see what it is like."
Rotha coloured high and sat still. Indeed her aunt said, "Nonsense! do no such thing." But Mr. Busby repeated, "Fetch it, fetch it. We are talking in the abstract; I cannot convict anybody in the abstract."
"But it is Sunday, Mr. Busby."
"Well, my dear, what of that? The better day, the better deed. I am trying to bring you and Antoinette to a more Christian mind in respect of bonnets; that's good work for Sunday. Fetch your bonnet, Rotha."
"Do no such thing, Rotha," said her aunt. "Mr. Busby is playing; he does not mean his words to be taken literally. You would not send her up three pair of stairs to gratify your whim, when another time would do just as well?"
"My dear, I always mean my words to be taken literally. I do not understand your arts of rhetoric. I will send Rotha up stairs, if she will be so obliging as to gratify my whim."
He looked at Rotha as he spoke, and Rotha half rose from her seat; when Antoinette suddenly dashed past her, saying, "I will fetch it"—and ran off up stairs. Rotha sat down again, much confounded at this benevolence, and wondering what that was not benevolent might lie beneath it. Mrs. Busby pursed up her mouth and looked at nobody. Presently Antoinette came down again. In her hand she held a little grey plush hat, somewhat worn but very jaunty, with a long grey feather, curled round it. This hat she held out on the tips of her fingers for her father's inspection. Rotha's eyes grew large with astonishment. Mrs. Busby's lips twitched. Antoinette looked daring and mischievous. Mr. Busby innocently surveyed the grey plush and feather.
"So that is what you call a hat for a poor girl?" he said. "It seems to me, if I remember, that is very like one you used to wear, Nettie."
"Yes, papa, it is; but this is Rotha's."
"Mrs. Busby, was this your choice?"
"Yes, Mr. Busby."
"Then of course this is proper for Rotha. Now will you explain to me why it is not equally proper for Antoinette? But this is not what I should have called a hat for a poor girl, my dear."
"Mr. Busby, while Rotha lives with us, it is necessary to have a certain conformity—there cannot betoomuch difference made."
"Hum—ha!" said the bewildered man. Rotha by this time had got her breath.
"That is not my hat however, Mr. Busby," she said, with cheeks on fire.
"Yes, it is your hat," said Antoinette. "Do you think I am saying what is not true? It is your hat, and nobody else's."
"It isyourhat. I have seen you wear it."
"I have given it to you. It is your hat."
"I don't take it," said Rotha. "Your things do not suit me, as your mother has just said. You may do what you like with it; but you do not give it to me!"
Mr. Busby looked from one to the other.
"Do you expect me to buy new everything for you?" Mrs. Busby asked now. "Is it not good enough? I suppose it is much better than any hat you ever had before in your life."
"But it is not mine," said Rotha. "It never was given to me. I never heard anything of it until now, when Antoinette fetched it because she did not want Mr. Busby to see what sort of a hat I really had. Thank you! I do not take it."
"But it is yours!" cried Antoinette. "I have given it to you. Do you think I would wear it, after giving it away?"
"If it was convenient, you would," said Rotha.
"You may lay your account with not having any hat, then, unless you wear this," said Mrs. Busby. "You may take your choice. If you receive Antoinette's kindness so, you must not look for mine."
"Your kindness, and hers, are the very strangest sort I ever heard of in my life," said Rotha.
"What am I to understand by all this?" asked the perplexed Mr. Busby, looking from the hat to the faces of the speakers.
"Only, that I never heard of that hat's being intended for me until this minute," said Rotha.
"Rotha," said her aunt quietly, "you may go up stairs."
"What did you bring it down for, Nettie?"
"Because you took an insane fancy to see Rotha's bonnet, papa; so I brought it."
"That is not true, Mr. Busby," Rotha said, standing up to go.
"It is not your hat?"
"No, sir."
"Mr. Busby, if you would listen to Antoinette's words," said his wife with her lips very compressed, "you would understand things. Rotha, I said you might go."
Which Rotha did, Antoinette at the same moment bursting into tears and flinging the hat on the dinner table.
What followed, Rotha did not know. She climbed the many stairs with a heavy heart. It was war to the knife now. She was sure her aunt would never forgive her. And, much worse, she did not see how she was ever to forgive her aunt. And yet—"if thy neighbour hath ought against thee"—. Rotha had far more againsther, she excused herself, in vain. The one debt was not expunged by the other. And, bitter as her own grievances seemed to her, there was a score on the other side. Not so would Mr. Digby have received or returned injuries. Rotha knew it. And as fancy represented to her the quiet, manly, dignified sweetness which always characterized him, she did not like the retrospect of her own behaviour. So true it is, that "whatsoever doth make manifest is light." No discourse could have given Rotha so keen a sense of her own failings as that image of another's beautiful living. What was done could not be undone; but the worst was, Rotha was precisely in the mood to do it over again; so though sorry she was quite aware that she was not repentant.
It followed that the promises for which she longed and to which she was stretching out her hands, were out of reach. Clean out of reach. Rotha's heart was the scene of a struggle that took away all possibility of comfort or even of hope. She had no right to hope. "If thy hand offend thee, cut it off"—but Rotha was not so minded. The prospect was dark and miserable. How could she go on living in her aunt's house? and how could she live anywhere else? and how could she bear her loneliness? and how could she get to the favour of that one great Friend, whose smile is only upon them that are at least trying to do his commandments? It was dark in Rotha's soul, and stormy.
It continued so for days. In the house she was let alone, but so thoroughly that it amounted to domestic exile or outlawry. She was let alone. Not forbidden to take her place at the family table, or to eat her portion of the bread and the soup; but for all social or kindly relations, left to starve. Mr. Busby's mouth had been shut somehow; he was practically again a man of papers; and the other two hardly looked at Rotha or spoke to her. Antoinette and she sometimes went to school together and sometimes separate; it was rather more lonely when they went together. In school they hardly saw each other. So days went by.
"How is that Carpenter girl doing?" Mrs. Mowbray inquired one day of MissBlodgett, as they met in one of the passages.
"I have been wanting to speak to you about her, madame. She knows all I can teach her in that class."
"Does she! Her aunt told me she had had no advantages. Does she study?"
"I fancy she has no need to study much where she is. She has been further."
"How does she behave?"
"Perfectly well. She does not look to me happy."
"Not happy! Is her cousin kind to her? She is cousin to that prettyBusby, you know."
"I think she hardly speaks to her. Not here, I mean."
Mrs. Mowbray passed on. But that very afternoon, when school was breaking up, Miss Blodgett asked Rotha to wait a few minutes. The girls were all gone in a trice; Miss Blodgett herself followed; and Rotha was left alone. She waited a little while. Then the door opened and the figure which had such a fascination for her appeared. The face looked gentler and kinder than she had seen it before; this was not school time. Mrs. Mowbray came in and sat down by Rotha, after giving her her hand.
"Are you quite well, my dear?" was her instant question after the greeting. "You are hoarse."
Rotha said she had caught a little cold.
"How did you do that?"
"I think it was sitting in a cold room."
"Were you obliged to sit in a cold room?"
Rotha hesitated. "It was pleasanter there," she said with some embarrassment.
"You never should sit in a cold room. What did you want to be in a cold room for?"
Rotha hesitated again. "I wanted to be alone."
"Studying?"
"Not my lessons,"—said Rotha doubtfully.
"Not your lessons? If you and I were a little better acquainted, I should ask for a little more confidence. But I will not be unreasonable."
Rotha glanced again at the sweet face, so kindly now with all its penetrating acuteness and habit of authority; so sweet with its smile; and confidence sprang forth at the instant, together with the longing for help. Did not this look like a friend's face? Where else was she to find one? Reserve gave way.
"I was studying my duty," she said softly.
"Your duty, my dear? Was the difficulty about knowing it, or about doing it?"
"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, andLatin, 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 itisstudy, 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 noble 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 assented. "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 haveheraltogether; 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."I am accustomed to having her under my own wing."
"And that is a privilege you would not yield to any one else. I understand. Well, what do you say about Miss Carpenter?"
Mrs. Busby looked at her husband. Long experience enabled him to guess at what he was desired to say.
"My dear—since Mrs. Mowbray is so kind—it would be a great thing forRotha the best thing that could happen to her—"
Mrs. Busby turned her eyes to her visiter.
"Since you are so good, Mrs. Mowbray—it is more than I could ask you to do—"
"I shall be very glad to do it. I am nothing if not professional, you know," Mrs. Mowbray said rising and drawing her fur together again. "Then that is settled."— And with gracious deference and sweetness of manner she took her leave.
"That's what I call a good riddance!" exclaimed Antoinette when she was free to express her opinion.
"You will find it a happy relief," added Mr. Busby. "And not a little saving, too."
Mrs. Busby was silent. With all the relief and the saving, there was yet something in the plan which did not suit her. Nevertheless, the relief, and the saving, were undoubted facts; and she held her tongue.
"Mamma, what are you going to do about Rotha's dresses?"
"I will see, when she comes to me with a proper apology."
Of all this nothing was told to Rotha. So she was a little surprised, when next morning Mrs. Mowbray came into the schoolroom and desired to see her after school. But then Mrs. Mowbray's first words were about her cold.
"My dear, you are very hoarse! You can hardly speak. And you feel miserably, I see. I shall sequester you at once. Come with me."
Wondering but obedient, Rotha followed. What was going to happen now? Up stairs, along a ball, up another flight of stairs, past the great schoolrooms, now empty, through a small bedroom, through a large one, along another passage. At last a door is opened, into what, as Rotha enters it, seems to her a domestic paradise. The air deliciously warm and sweet, the walls full of engravings or other pictures, tables heaped with books, a luxuriously appointed bed and dressing tables, (what to Rotha's eyes was enormous luxury)—finally a couch, where she was made to lie down and covered over with a brilliant affghan. Rotha was transported into the strangest of new worlds. Her new friend arranged the pillow under her head, gave her some tasteless medicine; that was a wonderful innovation too, for all Rotha's small experience had been of nauseous rhubarb and magnesia or stinging salts; and finally commanded her to lie still and go to sleep.
"But aunt Serena—?" Rotha managed to whisper.
"She has made you over to me. You are going to live in my house for the present, where you can carry on your studies better than you could at home, and I can attend to you better. Here you have been losing a month, because I did not know what you properly required. Are you willing to be my child, Rotha?—instead of Mrs. Busby's?—for a time?"
The flash of joy in Rotha's eyes was so eloquent and so bright, that Mrs.Mowbray stooped down and kissed her.
"I never was Mrs. Busby's child,"—the girl must make so much protest.
"Well, no matter; you are not her child now. Lie still, and go to sleep if you can."
Could she? Not at once. Is it possible to tell the sort of Elysium in which the child was lapped? Softness and warmth and ease and rest, andhiding, and such beauty and such luxury! Mrs. Mowbray left the room presently; and Rotha lay still under her affghan, looking from one to another point of delight in the room, wondering at this suddenly entered fairyland, comforted inexpressibly by the assurance that she was taken out of her aunt's house and presence, happy in the promise of the new guardianship into which she had come. What pretty pictures were on the walls, all around her, over her head; here was a lady, there a lovely little girl; here a landscape; there a large print shewing a horse which a smith is just about shoeing, and a little foal standing by. And so her eye wandered, from one to another, every one having its peculiar interest for Rotha. Then the books. How the books were piled up, on the floor, on the dressing-table, on benches, on the mantelpiece; there was a kind of overflow and breaking wave of literary riches which seemed to have scattered its surplus about this room. And there were trinkets too, and pretty useful trifles, and pretty things of use that were not trifles. Rotha had always lived in a very plain way; her father's house had shewed no far-off indication of this sort of life. Neither had her aunt's house. Plenty of means was not wanting there; the house had money enough; what it lacked was the life. No love of the beautiful; no habit of elegant surroundings; no literary taste that had any tide or flow whatsoever, much less overflow. No art, and no associations. Everything here had meaning, and indications of life, or associations with it; with mental life especially. What exactly it was that charmed her, Rotha could not have told; she could not have put all this into words; yet she felt all this. The girl had come into a new atmosphere, where for the first time her soul seemed to draw free breath. It was, by its affinities, her native air. Certainly in the company of Mr. Southwode all this higher part of her nature had been fed and fostered, and with him too she was at home; but she had seen him only in Mrs. Marble's house or in the lodgings at Fort Washington.
It was long before Rotha could sleep. She waked as the day was declining and the room growing dusky. A maid came in and lit the fire, which presently sparkled and snapped and sent forth jets of flame which lit up the room with a red illumination. Rotha recognized, she thought, the sort of coal which Mr. Digby had sent in for her mother, and hailed the sight; but she was mistaken, a little; it was kennal coal, not Liverpool. It snapped and shone, and the light danced over pictures and books and curtains; and Rotha wondered what would come next.
What came next was Miss Blodgett, followed by the maid bearing a tray. The tray was placed on a stand by the couch, and Rotha was informed that this was her dinner. Mrs. Mowbray wished her to keep quite quiet and live very simply until this cold was broken up. Rotha raised herself on her couch and looked in astonishment at what was before her. A hot mutton chop, a roll, a cup of tea, and some mashed potatoe. A napkin was spread over the tray; and there was a little silver salt cellar, and a glass of water, and a plate of rice pudding. Ah, surely Rotha was in fairyland; and never was there so beneficent and so magnificent a fairy in human shape. Miss Blodgett saw her arranged to her mind, and left her to take her dinner in peace and at leisure; which Rotha did, almost ready to cry for sheer pleasure. When had dinner been so good to her? Everything was so hot and so nice and so prettily served. Rotha lay down again feeling half cured already.
However, such well-grounded colds as she had taken are not disposed of in a minute; and Rotha's kept her shut up for yet several days more. Wonders went on multiplying; for a little cot bed was brought into the room, (which Rotha found was Mrs. Mowbray's own) and made up there for her occupancy; and there actually she slept those nights. And Mrs. Mowbray nursed her; gave her medicine, by night and by day; sent her dainty meals, and allowed her to amuse herself with anything she could find. Rotha found a book suited to her pleasure, and had a luxurious time of it. Towards the end of the second day, Mrs. Mowbray came into the room; a little while before dinner.
"How do you do?" she said, standing and surveying her patient.
"Very well, ma'am; almost quite well."
"You will be glad to be let out of prison?"
"It is a very pleasant prison."
"I do not think any prison is pleasant. What book have you got there?Mrs. Sherwood. Do you like it?"
"Overymuch, ma'am!"
"My dear, your aunt has sent your trunk, at my request; and Miss Blodgett has unpacked it to get at the things you were wanting. But there is only one warm dress in it. Is that your whole ward robe?"
"What dress is that? what sort, I mean?"
"Grey merino, I believe."
"It is not mine," said Rotha flushing. "It is Antoinette's. They tried it on, but it did not fit me. I told aunt Serena I would rather wear my own old one."
"That is the one you are wearing now?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"My dear, is that your whole supply for the winter?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"I observe you have a nice supply of under wear."
"Yes, ma'am. That was got for me by somebody else; not my aunt."
"Have you other relations then, besides Mrs. Busby?"
"No, ma'am. But I have a friend."
"May I know more, since you have begun to confide in me? Who is this friend?"
"It is the friend mother trusted me to, when she—when she—"
"Yes, I understand," said Mrs. Mowbray gently. "Why does not this friend take care of you then, instead of leaving you to your aunt?"
"O he does take care of me," cried Rotha; "but he is in England; he is not here. He had to go home because his father was very ill—dying, I suppose."
"He?" repeated Mrs. Mowbray. "A gentleman?"
"Yes, ma'am. He was the only friend that took care of mother. He got those things for me."
"What is his name, my dear?"
"Mr. Digby. I mean, Mr. Southwode. I always used to call him Mr. Digby."
"Digby Southwode!" said Mrs. Mowbray. "But he is ayounggentleman."
"O yes," said Rotha. "He is not old. He was called away, back to England suddenly, and aunt Serena hindered my knowing, and hindered him somehow from seeing me at all to say a word to me before he went. And I never can forgive her for it,—never, never!"
"Hush, my dear," said Mrs. Mowbray softly. "Your aunt may have thought she had good reasons. How came you under your aunt's care then?"
"Mr. Digby took me to her," said Rotha, her eyes filling, while they sparkled at the same time. "He said it was best for me to be there, under her care, as he had no home where he could take me. But if he had known, he never would have left me with her. I know he would not. He would have taken care of me some other way."
"What has Mr. Southwode done for you, that you should have such trust in him?"
But Rotha somehow did not want to go into this subject in detail.
"He did everything for us that a friend could do; he taught me, and he took care of mother; and mother left me in his charge."
"Where was Mrs. Busby?"
"Just where she is now. She did not know we were here."
"Why was that?"
Rotha hesitated. "Mother did not like to tell her," she said, somewhat obscurely.
"And she left you in this gentleman's care."
"Yes."
"And he put you under your aunt's care."
"Yes, for the present. But I was to tell him if anything went wrong; and I have never been able to speak a word to him since. Nor to write, because he had not given me his address."
"Mr. Southwode is an Englishman. It is probable, if his father is dead, that he will make his home in England for the future."
Rotha was silent. She thought Mr. Digby would not forget her, or fail in his promises; but she kept her views to herself.
"He did very properly in committing you to your aunt's care; and now I am very glad I have got you," Mrs. Mowbray went on cheerily. "Now we will try and get all those questions straightened out, that were troubling you. What was it? a question of duty, you said, didn't you?"
Mrs. Mowbray was arranging her heterogeneous masses of books in something like external order; she put a little volume into Rotha's hand as she said the last words. It was a very small New Testament; very small, yet in the clear English printing which made it delightfully legible. "That is the best thing to solve questions of duty with," she went on. "Keep it, my dear."
"O thank you, ma'am!" cried Rotha, a bright colour of pleasure rushing into her cheeks. "O thank you, ma'am! How beautiful! and how nice! But here is where I found my question," she added sorrowfully.
"I dare say. It is the old story—'When the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.' What was the point this time?"
"Just that point I spoke of, about aunt Serena. I do not forgive her; and in the fifth chapter of Matthew,—here it is: 'If thou bring thy gift to the altar—'"
"I know," Mrs. Mowbray broke in, very busy seemingly with her books and not looking at Rotha. "Why cannot you forgive her?"
"Because I am so wrong, I suppose," Rotha answered humbly.
"Yes, but what has she done?"
"I told you, ma'am. She kept me from seeing Mr. Southwode before he went away. She never even told me he had been at the house, nor that he was gone. I found it out. She meant I should not see him."
"My dear," said Mrs. Mowbray, "that does not seem to me a very heinous offence."
"It was the very worst thing she could do; the cruelest, and the worst."
"She might have thought she had good reasons."
"She did not think that. She knew better. I think she wanted me all in her power."
"Never think evil of people, if it is possible to think good," Mrs. Mowbray continued. "Always find a pleasant reason for the things people do, if it is possible to find one. It is quite as likely to be true, and it leaves you a great deal more comfortable."
"You cannot always do that," said Rotha.
"And this is one of the times? Well, what are you going to do about it?Can't you forgive your aunt, even if you think the worst?"
"It would be very easy to forgive her, if I could think differently," said Rotha.
"It occurs to me—Those words you began to quote,—they run, I think, 'If thy brother hath oughtagainstthee.' Is that the case here?"
"Yes, ma'am, because I charged her with what she had done; and she did not excuse herself; and I thought I had a right to be angry—very angry; but when I came to those words in my reading, I remembered that though I had so much against her, she had a little against me; because I had not spoken just right. And then I knew I ought to confess it and make an apology; and I was so angry I could not."
"And do you feel so now?" Mrs. Mowbray asked after a slight pause.
"Just the same."
"Do you think you are a Christian, Rotha?"
"No, ma'am. I know—a Christian does His commandments," the girl answered low.
"Do you want to be a Christian?"