'Most people change—develope—in those years just before twenty.'
'Not like you did, miss. You gave me a deal of trouble when you was little, but it nearly broke my heart to come back and find you so quieted down and wise-like.'
A flash of tears glimmered in the mistress's eyes, though her lips were smiling.
'Of course,' the maid went on, 'though you never told me about it, I know you had things to bear while I was away, or else you wouldn't have gone away from your home that time—a mere child—and tried to teach for a living.'
'It was absurd of me! But whosever fault it was, it wasn't yours.'
'Yes, miss, in a way it was. I owed it to your mother not to have left you. I've never told you how I blamed myself when I heard—and I didn't wonder at you. It was hard when your mother was hardly cold to see your father——'
'Yes; now that's enough, Wark. You know we never speak of that.'
'No, we've never spoken about it. And, of course, you won't need me any more like you did then. But it's looking back and remembering—it's that that's making it so hard to leave you now. But——'
'Well?'
'My friends have been talking to me.'