A CHANGE.
The two years of smooth sailing along the stream of life, were ended. What was coming next? But how should the sailor learn navigation, if he had never anything but calm weather and quiet airs?
It was spring, late in May; when one evening Mrs. Mowbray came into Rotha's little room, shut the door, and sat down. Rotha looked up from her book and smiled. Mrs. Mowbray looked down at the book and sighed. A heavy sigh, it seemed to Rotha, and her smile died away.
"You want to speak to me, madame?" she said, and laid her book away.
"I am going to send you home—" said the lady abruptly.
"Home!—" the word was but half uttered. What was this? The term was not near at an end.
"You must go, my dear," Mrs. Mowbray went on more softly; for the first word had been spoken with the sternness of pain. "I must send you all away from me."
"Whom?"
"All of you! It has pleased heaven to visit me with a great calamity. You must all go."
"What is it, Mrs. Mowbray?" said Rotha, trembling with a fear to which she could give no form.