Then, as Anna was silent, and with head bent appeared to be staring into nothingness, Rosemary continued lightly, even though her heart felt heavy at sight of the havoc wrought in this young thing by miseries at which she could still only guess.
"By the way, little 'un," she said, "I don't yet know what you are doing in Kolozsvár—or Cluj—tiresome name, I never can remember it! Your cousin, Peter Blakeney, told me I should find you here, and that he had written to tell you I should be at the 'Pannonia' to-day; but that is all I know. Where is your mother?"
"She is still in Ujlak, of course," the girl replied more calmly, "looking after the place as best she can. But, of course, it is very hard and very, very difficult. They have taken away so much of the land, some of the best pasture, over twelve hundred acres; mother has only about two hundred left. There is not enough for the horses' feed. Mother had to have ten brood mares destroyed this spring. It was no use trying to keep them, and she could not bring herself to sell them. Imagine mother having her mares killed! It would have broken her heart, only she has had so much to endure lately she——"
Once more the girl broke down; a lump in her throat choked the bitter words. Rosemary frowned.
"But, then, why are you not at home with your mother, Anna?" she asked.
"I earn a little money here, and Marie is at home. She is younger than I, you remember, and she was always mother's favourite."
"How do you mean you earn money, Anna? At what?"
Anna hesitated for a moment. She looked up and saw Rosemary's eyes fixed questioningly upon her, and those eyes were so full of kindness that the girl's reticence, even her bitterness, melted under the warmth of that gaze.
"I help in the shop of Balog, the grocer," she replied simply.
"Balog, the grocer? You?"