"Get up, Antoinette"—for the young lady had thrown herself down on the floor in her urgency, at her mother's feet. "Get up, and take off your things; you are extremely silly. I have no intention of letting them meet at all."
"Mamma, how are you going to help it? He will find out where she is at school—he will go straight there, and then you may depend Rotha will snap her fingers at you. So will he; and to have two people snapping their fingers at us will just drive me wild."
Mrs. Busby could not help laughing. At the same time, she as well as Antoinette regarded the matter from a very serious point of view. She knew Rotha had grown up very handsome; and all her mother's partiality did not make her sure that men like Mr. Southwode might not prefer the sense and grace and spirit which breathed from every look and motion of Rotha's, to the doll beauty of her own daughter. Yet it was not insipid beauty either; the face of Antoinette was exceedingly pretty, the smile very captivating, and the white and peach-blossom very lovely in her cheeks. But for sense, or dignity, or sympathy with any thoughts high and noble, if one looked to Antoinette one would look in vain. No matter; hers was just a style which captivates men, Mrs. Busby knew; even sensible men,—the only danger as in possible comparison or contrast. That danger should be avoided.
"Nobody will snap fingers at me," she complacently remarked.
"But how will you help it?"
"I dare say there is no danger. Get up, Antoinette! there is the door bell."
And then in walked Rotha.
It struck her that her aunt and cousin were a little more than ordinarily stiff towards her; but of course they had no reason to expect her then, and the surprise was not agreeable. So Rotha dismissed the matter with a passing thought and an unbreathed sigh; while she told the cause of her unlooked-for appearance. Mrs. Busby sat and meditated.
"It is very unfortunate!" she said at last, with her eyebrows distressingly high.
"What?" said Rotha. "My coming? I am sorry, aunt Serena; as sorry as you can be. Is my being here particularly inconvenient just at this time?"