“Rose has gone to pay Miss Margetts a visit,” she said, at the early dinner. “I think a little change will do her good. I shall run up to town in a few days and see after her things.”
“Gone to Miss Margetts’! I wonder why no one ever said so,” cried Agatha, who was always full of curiosity. “What a funny thing, to go off on a visit without even saying a word!”
“It was settled quite suddenly,” said the mother, with perfect composure. “I don’t think she has been looking well for some days; and I always intended to go to town about her things.”
“What a very funny thing,” repeated Agatha, “to go off at five o’clock; never to say a word to any one—not even to take a box with her clothes, only that little black bag. I never heard of anything so funny; and to be so excited about it that she never went to bed.”
“Do not talk nonsense,” said Mrs. Damerel, sharply; “it was not decided till the evening before, after you were all asleep.”
“But, mamma”—
“I think you might take some of this pudding down to poor Mary Simpson,” said Mrs. Damerel, calmly; “she has no appetite, poor girl; and, Agatha, you can call at the postoffice, and ask Mrs. Brown if her niece has got a place yet. I think she might suit me as housemaid, if she has not got a place.”
“Then, thank Heaven,” said Agatha, diverted entirely into a new channel, “we shall get rid of Mary Jane!”
Having thus, as it were, made her experiment upon the subject nearest her heart, Mrs. Damerel had her little romance perfectly ready for Mr. Incledon when he came. “You must not blame me for a little disappointment to-day,” she said, “though indeed I ought to have sent you word had I not been so busy. You must have seen that Rose was not herself yesterday. She has her father’s fine organization, poor child, and all our troubles have told upon her. I have sent her to her old school, to Miss Margetts, whose care I can rely upon, for a little change. It will be handy in many ways, for I must go to town for shopping, and it will be less fatiguing to Rose to meet me there than to go up and down on the same day.”
“Then she was not well yesterday?” said Mr. Incledon, over whose face various changes had passed of disappointment, annoyance, and relief.