“Did you ring, ma’am?” she asked.
“Yes,” was the answer. “Has Miss Caroline gone yet?”
“No, ma’am,” answered Martha, smilingly displaying a glorious set of white teeth. “She’s been out in de kitchen fo’ a w’ile.”
“In the kitchen?”
“Yas’m. Ah took her out dere. She didn’t want to be seed by no one.”
“And what is she doing there?”
“She’s been mostly sewin’ an’ behabin’ mighty strange about sumfin a gret deal ob de time. She’s a-snifflin’ an’ a-weepin’, but Ah belieb she’s gittin’ ready to gwine home now.”
“Very well,” said Mrs. Varney, “will you please ask her to come in here a moment before she goes.”
“Yas’m, ’deed Ah will,” said old Martha, turning and going out of the door through which, presently, Caroline herself appeared.
She looked very demure and the air of innocence, partly natural but largely assumed, well became her although it did not deceive Mrs. Varney for a moment, or would not have deceived her if she had had any special interest in Caroline’s actions or emotions. The greater strain under which she laboured made the girl of small moment; she would simply use her, that was all.