"Looking at your Russia leather bag. Why didn't you bring it for us to see? But your room means three or four other people's room, don't it?"
It was on Rotha's lips to say that she had a room to herself; she shut them and did not say it. A sense of fun began to mingle with her inward anger. Here she was in her stockings, unable to get her feet into her boots.
"How am I to get home, ma'am?" she asked as demurely as she could.
"Antoinette, haven't you a pair of old boots or shoes, that Rotha could get home in?"
"What should I do when I got there? I could not wear old boots about the house. Mrs. Mowbray would not like it."
"Nettie, do you hear me?" Mrs. Busby said sharply. "Get something of yours to put on Rotha's feet."
"If she can't wear her own, she couldn't wear mine—" said Miss Nettie, unwilling to furnish positive evidence that her foot was larger than her cousin's. Her mother insisted however, and the boots were brought. They went on easily enough.
"But these would never do to walk in," objected Rotha. "My feet feel as if each one had a whole barn to itself. Look, aunt Serena. And I could not go to the parlour in them."
"I don't see but you'll have to, if you can't get your own on. You'll have worse things than that to do before you die. I wouldn't be a baby, and cry about it."
For Rotha's lips were trembling and her eyes were suddenly full. Her neat feet transformed into untidy, shovelling things like these! and her quick, clean gait to be exchanged for a boggling and clumping along as if her feet were in loose boxes. It was a token how earnest and true was Rotha's beginning obedience of service, that she stooped down and laced the boots up, without saying another word, though tears of mortification fell on the carpet. She was saying to herself, "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." She rose up and made her adieux, as briefly as she could.