“Dear Rhoda, which would you like?” responded Phoebe at once.
A little sob escaped Rhoda.
“Oh, Phoebe, you are going to be the only one who is good to me! I should like that other long one in the north wing, that matches ours; but don’t choose it if you don’t like it.”
“We will have that,” said Phoebe, reassuringly; “at least, if Mother leaves it to me.”
Thus early it was made evident that the old nature in Anne Latrobe was scotched, not killed. Sorrow seemed to have laid merely a repressive hand upon her bad qualities, and to have uprooted none but good ones. The brilliance and playfulness of her early days were gone. The coeur leger had turned to careless self-love, the impetuosity had become peevish obstinacy.
“Old Madam never spoke to me in that way!” said Betty. “She liked to have her way, poor dear gentlewoman, as well as anybody; and she wouldn’t take a bit of impudence like so much barley-sugar, I’ll not say she would; but she was a gentlewoman, every inch of her, that she was. And that’s more than you can say for some folks!”
The next morning, all the Maidens—the invalid, as usual, excepted—came trooping up one after another, to pay their respects to the new lady of the manor.
Lady Betty came first; then Mrs Dorothy and Mrs Eleanor, together; after a little while, Mrs Clarissa; and lastly, Mrs Jane.
“My dear Mrs Anne, I remember you well, though perhaps you can scarce recollect me,” said Mrs Dorothy, “for you were but nine years old the last time that I saw you. May the Lord bless you, my dear, and make you a blessing!”
“Oh, I don’t doubt I shall do my duty,” was the response of Mrs Latrobe, which very much satisfied herself and greatly dissatisfied Mrs Dorothy.