"Your kindness, and hers, are the very strangest sort I ever heard of in my life," said Rotha.
"What am I to understand by all this?" asked the perplexed Mr. Busby, looking from the hat to the faces of the speakers.
"Only, that I never heard of that hat's being intended for me until this minute," said Rotha.
"Rotha," said her aunt quietly, "you may go up stairs."
"What did you bring it down for, Nettie?"
"Because you took an insane fancy to see Rotha's bonnet, papa; so I brought it."
"That is not true, Mr. Busby," Rotha said, standing up to go.
"It is not your hat?"
"No, sir."
"Mr. Busby, if you would listen to Antoinette's words," said his wife with her lips very compressed, "you would understand things. Rotha, I said you might go."