A little morsel, not more than five years old, she was; with a white dress, and a broad scarlet sash, and a hat which she swung in her fingers by its scarlet strings. She looked so bright and vivid, and she was such an unexpected vision in that place, that it almost seemed as if one of the poppies in the yard beyond had turned into a little girl, and come up the steps.
“Did you want me?” Miss Harding asked, going up to the tiny blossom of a creature.
“No, if you please.”
“My father, then, Dr. Harding,—were you sent for him?”
The child surveyed her, as if in gentle surprise at so much curiosity.
“No,” she answered, after a moment. “I am Rosebud; and I don’t want anybody. Jane told me to come here, and she would follow presently.”
She said the words with a singular correctness and propriety, as if they were a lesson which she had been taught.
“And who is Jane?” Miss Harding asked.
Evidently the process of training had gone no further. The child looked puzzled and uncomfortable.