“Don’t mind, anyway,” returned Betsy stoutly. “That’s what I was just sayin’. Your soul’s your own—”
“But she spent so much money on me.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know; but if I could pay it back, and needn’t care how her eyes look—”
“Very likely you will pay her some day. Meanwhile keep a stiff upper lip. Don’t act as if you’d done anything wrong, ’cause you haven’t.”
“I’m not clever,” mourned Rosalie. “Look at Helen Maynard. See what she has done. She was a poor girl, too. She was older than I, and we seldom met at school; but she studied practical things. I was so happy, and my teachers so delightful, but what did it fit me for?”
“Nothin’, and I knew it,” responded Betsy bluntly.
“It made life brighter and fuller,” said Rosalie, and her eyes looked away to where Betsy knew she could not follow. Her old idea of the princess in exile returned upon her with force as she gazed at the girl, for Rosalie drew herself up unconsciously; leafy shadows lay in her pensive eyes and brocaded her white gown, while an arrow of sunlight gilded the braided coronet of her hair.
“Although I went back to washing Mrs. Pogram’s dishes, I didn’t live in that kitchen,” she went on softly. “There were great fields—green fields and pastures new, where my thoughts went roving.”
They both kept silence for a space; then Rosalie came back from her short day-dream and met her friend’s eyes. “I don’t think I have a bad disposition?” she said questioningly.