"Country people!—"
"Country people can be a very good sort. You need not sneer at them."
"I remark that you have not been anxious to go back and see them, mamma."
Rotha was dumb meanwhile, and during a longer continuance of this sort of talk; with a variety of feelings at work in her, among which crept a certain flavouring of suspicion. Was she to be alone in her mother's old home at Tanfield? Alone, with companions that could not be companions? Was it any use to question her aunt further? She feared not; yet the questions would come.
"What sort of persons are those in the house, aunt Serena?"
"Quite sufficient to take good care of you. A man and his wife. Honest people, and kind."
"Servants!"
"In so far as they are serving me."
Antoinette again pressed to be told who they were, was again put off. From the little altercation resulting, Mrs. Busby turned to Rotha with a new theme.
"You will not want your New York wardrobe there,—what will you do? Leave your trunk here? That will be best, I think, till you come back again."