“I fancy so,” said Rose, getting up and stretching her hands above her head. “Shall we have supper now, Pauline? I wonder why that lamp smells so. Ours never do at home. I must ask Wilmot how to clean it. I am sure Mrs. Richards can’t do it properly.”
“I don’t suppose she does, my dear. I believe Sampson tried to teach her. She’s a domestic genius, isn’t she? I am beginning to feel grateful to Sampson. If your aunt had not heard of her you wouldn’t have come to me.”
“Pauline, I wish you would not speak of her like that,” said Rose, with a note of irritation in her voice. “Why do you?”
“Why shouldn’t I? It isn’t as if she was a lady. One of her uncles is a butcher; she told Clare so.”
“I don’t see why she should be ashamed of it,” returned Rose, answering Pauline’s tone rather than her words. “It’s what people are in themselves that matters, not what trade their relations belong to. But Miss Sampson has no relations of her very own. The M’Alisters adopted her. And Aunt Lucy thinks that her uncle might have been Cousin Lydia’s husband. It is that which made Aunt Lucy so interested in her at first. For, you know, if Cousin Lydia’s little girl had lived, she would have had Woodcote, and not Tom. And she and her father would have come to England when Uncle James died.”
Pauline was watching Rose’s face curiously. She did not feel any interest in Cousin Lydia and her husband, but she could not understand Rose’s change of attitude towards Rhoda Sampson. One explanation occurred to her—a delightful one. Had Rose made up her mind to spend the summer in London with her? Was this the reason she felt glad that her aunt had someone she liked to take her place?
“Well, as I said before, Rosie, I am grateful to Miss Rhoda Sampson,” she said laughingly. “If she was not at Woodcote, you would not be here. And I shall get more and more grateful to her as the weeks go on. I may get to love her in time, if she enables us to spend the summer together. You are quite happy about your aunt now, aren’t you, my Rose?”
Rose looked aghast at the prospect of spending the whole summer in the flat. She hardly knew how she was to endure it till June.
“I must go home in June, Pauline,” she said hastily. “I couldn’t stay longer than that.”
“Well, we shall see,” said Pauline gaily. “You won’t talk so lightly about going back when you have had a few more weeks of freedom, Rose. And if your aunt is so well provided for, there will be no need for you to go back. You won’t be wanted.”