“You saw us in the mirror, didn’t you?” Lucia asked, stepping within the room. “Betty, see how wonderfully this lace is being mended. She is practically making lace where it is torn. This is my friend Betty Lee, Rose. Betty—” but the Countess Coletti was at the door and spoke.
“Girls, run right down, please. Uncle wants to see you, Lucia.”
With a smile at the “Rose,” who was about to be more fully introduced to her, she supposed, Betty followed Lucia downstairs, while the countess went into the sewing room. “I thought I’d surprise you, Betty, though I almost forgot it,” said Lucia.
“You certainly did! That is the face that we saw at the window when we went carolling?”
“Yes. It was just accidental we found the girl, though. Mother has some lace to be mended, as you saw; and when she inquired a little, one of her friends told her about discovering this girl that does such fine work.”
“What is her name?”
“Rose Seville, I believe.”
“Seville! That is a place in Spain, isn’t it? First class in geography stand up, as Mother says! And it’s awfully like Sevilla, too!”
Lucia looked puled, then saw her uncle, who came from the drawing room into the hall as the girls reached the foot of the stairs. He was ready to leave the house, they saw. Nodding to Betty, whom he had seen before since her arrival, he detained Lucia for some message; Betty did not hear what it was and would not have listened. She went on into the drawing room and walked to one of the windows that looked out upon the lawns, now lovely with flowers.
Betty was thinking about the girl upstairs. Rose, like the “Rosie” of Mrs. Woods account. Seville, like Sevilla, and that man had called them the Sevillas. At least he had not found them; and if this were Ramon’s sister, she must have found enough work to get along. She would ask Lucia if she might talk to this Rose Seville.