“You must sadly want a lady friend, my dear,” she said.
Then she stared at me very hard, and I saw a curious change come over her face.
“Perhaps you will have one in the future,” was her next remark.
“Oh yes,” I answered briskly, “I have one now—a most dear, sweet lady. She came to see me quite a short time ago, and I went to stay with her last Saturday, and came home only last night. I love her dearly; her name is Miss Grace Donnithorne.”
“Then that is excellent—excellent,” said Mrs Moore. She looked at me wistfully, as though she meant to say something, but her next remark was, “It is a very nice, suitable arrangement.”
When tea was over I said I thought I ought to be going home. I had a hunger which was filling my heart. My body had been well fed—surprisingly well fed for me—that day. Had not Hannah supplied me with mutton-chops and potatoes, and Mrs Moore with hot cakes and fragrant tea? But I was hungry in another sort of way. I wanted to look at my mother’s picture. I wanted to gaze at the face of my very own mother. I meant to do so when I was quite alone in my bedroom that night. So I said hastily, “I must go back now;” and Mrs Moore went to put on her bonnet.
While she was away I knocked at Augusta’s door.
“Who’s there?” she called out.
“It’s I. I want to say good-bye.”
“Don’t come in, I beg of you. Good-bye.”