A white face turned toward her. The very sun-brown seemed to have been seared off by suffering.
“I can’t eat, dear Mrs. Benjamin,” she said.
“I’ve been thinking that we might make a plan, dear,” the older woman said, setting the tray aside and dismissing it. She drew a chair beside the girl and took her cold hands. “Thou wilt go to this school, as thy mother wishes, but when thou hast finished—it is only two years—if thee thinks the kind of life thy mother plans for thee too uncongenial, thee must come back to us, and help us with the school. There will always be a place for thee here, my child.”
“But two years in that loathsome school!”
“Thee dost not know that it’s loathsome. I’ve no doubt that if thee will take the right spirit with thee, it may be very good for thee. There are opportunities in that great city which Hill Top cannot offer.”
“But there won’t be any Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin! Oh, Mrs. Benjamin, why couldn’t you have been my mother?”
“I should have been proud to be, Isabelle,” she answered simply. “Thou art as dear to me as a daughter.”
Isabelle bent and kissed the kind hands that held her own, but she shed no tears.
“We all have bitter, disappointing things to meet. I shall expect my daughter to meet them with a fine courage,” she smiled.