"Yes," said her aunt, "and it is getting late. At this time of year the days seem to close in so suddenly."
"I'm afraid it is going to be a severe winter. I do so dislike severe winters, Auntie," said Rosamond, who had spent some part of her life in a warm climate.
"So do I," said her aunt, with a sigh, "it makes everything so much harder for the poor. I really think it is true that cold is worse to endure than hunger."
"You are so kind, Auntie dear," said Rosamond. "You really seem as if you felt other people's sufferings your own self. I think it is the little children I am most sorry for. Perhaps because I have been such a spoilt child myself! I cannot imagine how it would be possible to live through what some children have to live through. Above all, unkindness and neglect. That reminds me——"
She was going to tell her aunt of the children she had seen at Madame Nestor's, and of the sharp way the young woman in the shop had spoken to them, but just at that moment the carriage turned into the courtyard of their house, and the footman sprung down and opened the door.
"I wonder what put those children in my head just now?" thought Rosamond, as she followed her aunt slowly up the wide thickly-carpeted staircase. "I suppose it was talking of the poor people, though they were not exactly poor."
But a moment or two later she really felt as if her thoughts had taken shape, or that she was dreaming, when she caught sight of the most unexpected picture that presented itself to herself and her aunt on opening the door of their pretty "little drawing-room."
