After some further talk with the Signor concerning ways and means, she bade him good morning, and sat still for a moment to collect her thoughts. She then proceeded to the apartment assigned to the orphans. They were occupied with a piece of embroidery she had promised to sell for them. She looked at the work, praised the exactness of the stitches and the tasteful shading of the flowers; but while she pointed out the beauties of the pattern, her hand and voice trembled.
Rosabella noticed it, and, looking up, said, "What troubles you, dear friend?"
"O, this is a world of trouble," replied Madame, "and you have had such a storm beating on your young heads, that I wonder you keep your senses."
"I don't know as we could," said Rosa, "if the good God had not given us such a friend as you."
"If any new trouble should come, I trust you will try to keep up brave hearts, my children," rejoined Madame.
"I don't know of any new trouble that can come to us now," said Rosa, "unless you should be taken from us, as our father was. It seems as if everything else had happened that could happen."
"O, there are worse things than having me die," replied Madame.
Floracita had paused with her thread half drawn through her work, and was looking earnestly at the troubled countenance of their friend. "Madame," exclaimed she, "something has happened. What is it?"
"I will tell you," said Madame, "if you will promise not to scream or faint, and will try to keep your wits collected, so as to help me think what is best to be done."
They promised; and, watching her countenance with an expression of wonder and anxiety, they waited to hear what she had to communicate. "My dear children," said she, "I have heard something that will distress you very much. Something neither you nor I ever suspected. Your mother was a slave."