"Yes, ma'am."
"Well, I hope you have made some friends here. Miss Doolittle, won't you be helpful to Miss Carpenter if you can? she is a stranger among us.— Good morning, young ladies!"
The lady swept away from the room; but all that day there hovered in Rotha's thoughts a vision of beauty and grace and dignity, an accent of kindness, a manner of love and authority, which utterly fascinated and wholly captivated her. It was quite a sweetener of that day's dry work. She looked to see the vision come again the next day, and the next; in vain; but Rotha now knew the voice; and not a word was let fall from those lips, in reading or prayer, at the school opening now, that she did not listen to.
Days went on. At last one day Mrs. Busby said it was no use to wait any longer for the mantua-makers; Rotha might as well come down and have her dinner with the family. She could not stay in the drawing room of course, until she was decently dressed; but she might as well come to dinner. Rotha could not understand why so much could not have been granted from the first; there was nobody at the dinner table but her aunt and cousin and Mr. Busby. Mr. Busby was a very tall, thin man, always busy with newspapers or sheets of manuscript; whose "Good morning, my dear!" in that peculiar husky voice of his, was nearly all Rotha ever heard him say. He took his breakfast, or his dinner, and went off to his study at once.
Rotha climbed the stairs to Mrs. Busby's dressing room, after the meal was over, and sat down to think. She was consuming herself in impatience and fretting. By and by Lesbia came in to see to the fire.
"Lesbia," said Rotha with sudden resolution, "will you do something for me?" She looked at the girl eagerly.
"Mebbe, miss. Like to know what 'tis, fust."
"It is only, to tell me something," said Rotha lowering her voice.
"Aint nothin' harder 'n to tell things," said the girl. "That's the hardest thing I know."
"It isn't hard, if you are willing."