She had sent up her card, but was uncertain how much it would tell, or whether she should be allowed to see the person on whom she had called. As matters had turned out it seemed unfortunate that she had so long delayed her visit to Mrs. Roberts. If she could have been introduced here by Miss Parker in person, it might have been better for all concerned. As it was, she felt strangely out of place and embarrassed. She had not been able to decide just how she would account for her extreme interest in this stranger. It was especially embarrassing to remember that she must account for it even to the girl herself. While she waited, she went back in memory to that other waiting, in a boarding-house parlor, when she had called to see Mamie Parker. What eventful years had intervened, and what changes they had wrought! How mistaken she, Ruth Burnham, had been about many things, notably her estimate of Mamie Parker. Had she been able with prophetic insight to get a vision of the woman Mamie was to be, would it have made a difference, a radical difference with all their lives? Then she flushed to her temples as she remembered that such thoughts were almost an insult to her son.
Just then the door opened and there entered Madame Sternheim, the head of the "Young Ladies' Fashionable School."
Madame Sternheim was dignified and correct in every movement and word, and was as cold as ice.
Yes, Miss Somerville was with them, of course. Her poor father had left her in their charge, and a serious responsibility she found it. Oh, yes, Miss Parker, before she left, had spoken of some one by the name of—of Burnham—she referred to the card which she held in her hand—who might write, or be heard from in some way. She seemed not to be at all sure that any one would call.
Yes, certainly, the circumstances were peculiar and had been all the time. The poor father—it was by no means a pleasant thing to have to speak plainly of the dead, but it was sometimes necessary, and perhaps Mrs.—yes, thank you, Mrs. Burnham, knew that he was not in every respect the fit guardian for a young woman?
Oh, yes, Miss Parker had been most kind, most attentive; Miss Somerville owed her a deep debt of gratitude, certainly.
It seemed a strange—"Providence—shall we call it?" that took Miss Parker away to China at just the time when it would appear that her self-assumed charge needed her the most. She, Madame Sternheim, had never professed to understand the situation. Miss Parker, she believed, was not even remotely related to the girl, not even a relative of the relatives—was she? Yet her interest in the child and her father had been unaccountably deep. There had always seemed to her to be an air of mystery about the whole matter. Madame Sternheim did not like mystery; in fact she might say that she shrank from it. Did Mrs. Burnham understand that Miss Parker knew personally any of the family connection?
Ruth was angry with herself that she must blush and almost stammer over so simple a question.
No, that was what Madame Sternheim had been led to infer. The relatives were all in England, were they not? It seemed strange that the girl was not to go out to them; but then, her poor father—Had Mrs. Burnham been personally acquainted with the father? Well, she knew of him probably? which was perhaps quite enough. Miss Parker's unaccountable interest in him was beyond understanding, until one remembered that no one could tell on what the human heart would anchor, especially a woman's heart. She had never thought that Mr. Somerville was especially—but then he, poor man, was gone; they need not speak of such things now. And Miss Parker, too, was gone—to China! That was unaccountable. If love for the girl had been what had prompted her attentions all these years, why, the poor child was doubly in need of it now. She had been deeply attached to her father despite the fact that—
"Ah," Madame Sternheim broke off quickly, as the door slowly opened, to say:—