The girl turned round and caught the folds of her dress, and buried her face in them, crying. The coloured people are very emotional, and a sudden remorse had stabbed the depths of poor Rosa’s heart.
‘Oh, Miss Lizzie,’ she sobbed, ‘I’se so sorry the poor Doctor dead! Massa Courcelles tell me so as he went out. The dear good Doctor, who was so berry kind to me in my sickness, and so good to my little Carlo, and now he gone too, and me nebber see him any more, and my heart is broke, Miss Liz, my heart is broke!’
This tribute to her dead father’s virtues affected Liz more than anything else could have done.
‘If you are so sorry for his loss, Rosa,’ she answered gently, ‘what do you suppose I must feel. I seem to have lost everything to-day—everything,’ she added, in a vague and weary tone.
‘Oh, Missy Liz, I’se so sorry!’ repeated Rosa. ‘But what can I do to help you, and to take some of dis trouble off you? Let me do something, Missy Liz, to show I’se real sorry.’
‘You can go up to the White House, Rosa, and tell Mr Courtney of—of—this, and say I should like to see him as soon as he can come to me. I can’t find Chloe anywhere.’
‘Ah! dat Chloe no good. She too stupid!’ cried Rosa, with all a negress’s jealousy. ‘And may I come back, too, Missy Liz, with Massa Courtney, and help you nurse the baby, same as you helped me with little Carlo?’
The allusion to the child brought the trouble it had caused her too vividly to Lizzie’s mind. She dropped into a chair, and burst into tears.
‘Oh, Rosa! Rosa! you have spoiled my life for me. How could you be so cruel?’
The yellow girl crawled on her knees to the side of the Doctor’s daughter.