Rosamond was feeling pretty proud by the time Madam Mucklegrand came down stairs.
"We have engaged the young woman: the doctor quite approves; she will return without delay, I hope?"
As if Rosamond were somehow responsible all through.
"I have no doubt she will; good morning, madam."
"Good morning. I am, really, very much obliged. You have been of great service."
Rosamond turned quietly round upon the threshold.
"That was what I was very anxious to be," she said, in her perfectly sweet and musical voice,—"to the poor woman."
Italics would indicate too coarsely the impalpable emphasis she put upon the last two words. But Mrs. Mucklegrand caught it.
Rosamond went away quite as sure of her own self-respect as ever, but very considerably cured of Spreadsplendidism.
This was but one phase of it, she knew; there are real folks, also, in Spreadsplendid Park; they are a good deal covered up, there, to be sure; but they can't help that. It is what always happens to somebody when Pyramids are built. Madam Mucklegrand herself was, perhaps, only a good deal covered up.