“Mother!” Rosy breathed, with a soft little gasp. “Mother!” and turned her face farther away. “What did you tell her?”
Betty moved over to her and stood close at her side. The power of her personality enveloped the tremulous creature as if it had been a sense of warmth.
“I told her how beautiful the place was, and how Ughtred adored you—and how you loved us all, and longed to see New York again.”
The relief in the poor little face was so immense that Betty's heart shook before it. Lady Anstruthers looked up at her with adoring eyes.
“I might have known,” she said; “I might have known that—that you would only say the right thing. You couldn't say the wrong thing, Betty.”
Betty bent over her and spoke almost yearningly.
“Whatever happens,” she said, “we will take care that mother is not hurt. She's too kind—she's too good—she's too tender.”
“That is what I have remembered,” said Lady Anstruthers brokenly. “She used to hold me on her lap when I was quite grown up. Oh! her soft, warm arms—her warm shoulder! I have so wanted her.”
“She has wanted you,” Betty answered. “She thinks of you just as she did when she held you on her lap.”
“But if she saw me now—looking like this! If she saw me! Sometimes I have even been glad to think she never would.”