"Have more, if you wish," she said.
"This will do nicely. You're very kind, Mary Compton. I don't deserve it."
"You deserve the world," cried the adoring girl. "If I had your figure and complexion I'd make the universe wait on me."
In spite of all this fervor of praise Rose felt herself to be a very dejected and spiritless beauty. She was irritated and angry with the nagging of strange sights and sounds and smells. The air seemed laden with disease and filth. It was all so far from the coolly with its purple hills looming against the sapphire sunset sky.
But this she came for—to see the city; to plunge into its life. She roused herself therefore with a blush of shame at her weakness. She had appeared to be a child before this girl who had always been her inferior at school.
It was a very dignified young woman who arose to greet Mrs. Wilcox, the landlady, whom Mary brought back. This dignity was not needed. Mrs. Wilcox was a sweet-voiced, smiling woman of fifty—being of those toilers who smile when they are tired enough to drop. She was flushed with fatigue and moved languidly, but her kind, patient, pathetic smile touched Rose almost to tears.
"I'm glad to have you come here," the landlady said. "We're all nice people here, aren't we, Miss Compton?" Her eyes twinkled with humorous self-analysis.
"Every one of us," corroborated Mary.
"I hope you'll rest well. If there's anything we can do for you, my dear, let me know." Such was the spirit in which the over-worked woman served her boarders. They all called her "mother." She had no children of her own, and her husband was "not at all well," yet nothing could sour her sweet kindliness, which included all the world. She was a familiar type, and Rose loved her at once.
Miss Fletcher came in and was introduced. She was a teacher in a school near by.