“Then you are at a boarding-school, I suppose?” enquired Marion. “I was never at school myself; but sometimes, being an only daughter, I used to wish my father would send me. Are you happy at your school?”
“Very,” replied Maria, heartily. “It is a very nice school. It is not like those you read of, where the girls are harshly treated. We have such pretty little bed-rooms; only two in each. I have a little girl in mine, whom I take care of. She has only lately come, and at first she was very lonely. Poor Lotty! But now she is getting accustomed to it. She is very fond of me, poor child!”
Maria felt so perfectly at ease with her new friend, that she waxed communicative in a wonderful way.
“ ‘Lotty,’ did you say your name was?” said Marion. “I once knew a little girl named Lotty.”
What memories, what associations the simple word recalled! “Lotty,” Mrs. Baldwin repeated, half mechanically. “What is her other name, Miss Baxter?”
“Severn,” replied the girl. “Lotty Severn, Charlotte Severn, that is to say,” she added, glibly. “She is an orphan. Her father was a baronet, and now her uncle is one. She has always been brought up at home till lately. But about six months ago her little sister—”
Maria stopped, something in Mrs. Baldwin’s look of intense interest arrested her.
“Her little sister—Sybil—yes, I know,” exclaimed Marion. “Go on, please, Miss Baxter. I want to hear very much. You don’t know how much. Only don’t say that Sybil——.”
“I don’t like to tell you,” said Maria, looking frightened and half ready to cry.
“Please go on,” repeated her companion.