"No, grandmother," replied Rosanna, "only that I am very sorry that you are angry with me, and I hope some day you will be sorry too that you did not love me when I was here to love."
"Do you think of leaving?" said Mrs. Horton sneeringly. "You had better tell me where you are going so I can send your clothes. I believe that is the way they do with the sort of people you have been making friends with."
Rosanna did not reply:
"Let me catch you leaving this room!" said Mrs. Horton. She went out and closed the door. Rosanna nodded her head. Her mind was made up. She crossed to the dainty dresser, and switching on the lights did something she had never done in her life. Rosanna was not vain in the least, but if you could have seen her then, turning this way and that, lifting her long, heavy curls, wadding them on top of her head, or trying them in a long braid, you would have said that she seemed to be a very vain little girl indeed.
She appeared satisfied at last with what she saw in the glass, and noticed that it was growing quite dark.
She went over to her little bed, and knelt.
"Please, dear Lord," she whispered, "I don't want to do anything wrong. Please help me because I am so afraid. And now that Minnie is gone and Helen, please give me somebody to love me. Amen."
She felt better after that, and sat down by the window. It was almost dark....
When Mrs. Horton left Rosanna, she went down to the big, dim library and, seating herself at her desk, commenced to write letters. She found it difficult to collect her thoughts and there was a bad feeling in her heart, as though she was wrong, as though she was doing something unwise, unkind, and perhaps really wicked. But she thrust it out of her thoughts because she didn't think that she ever could do anything really wrong.
Something pressed hard on her heart, and she grew very restless. Some impulse led her to go to the telephone and call Mrs. Hargrave on the long distance line.