"How happened that?"
"It was partly my fault."
"Not altogether?" Mrs. Mowbray asked with a smile that was very kindly.
"I do not think it was all my fault, ma'am. Partly it was. I lost my temper, and got angry, and said what I thought, and aunt Serena banished me. Then at luncheon I apologized and asked pardon; I did all I could. But that wasn't the trouble. Aunt Serena told me to bring her all my nice stockings, and she would get me coarser and commoner ones. Must I do it?" And Rotha's eyes looked up anxiously into the lace of her oracle.
"What made her give you such an order?"
Rotha hesitated, and said at last she did not know.
"Are your stockings too fine for proper protection to your feet in cold weather?"
"O, no, ma'am! nothing was said about that at all; only I am a poor girl, and have no business to have fine stockings."
"How came you to have them so fine?"
"They were given to me. They were got for me; by a friend who was not poor. Are they not mine now?"