Rotha looked at her again, and then went on forking up her ground. "Yes," she said; "but people a great deal older than myself, Mrs. Purcell. Now see how that beautiful stem of white lilies is choked and covered up. A little while longer and we shall have a lovely head of white blossom bells there."
"Older 'n your own self?" repeated Mrs. Purcell softly.
"What?—O yes!" said Rotha laughing; "a great deal older than myself. Not what you are thinking about. I have been a school girl till I came here, Mrs. Purcell."
"Then Mis' Busby didn't send you here to keep you away from no one?"
Again Rotha looked in the woman's face, a half startled look this time. "No one, that I know," she answered. But a strange, doubtful feeling therewith came over her, and for a moment she stood still, with her eye going off to the gate and the road, musing. If it were so!—and a terrible impatience swelled in her breast. Ay, if it were so, there was no help for her. She could not get away, and nobody could come to her, because nobody knew and nobody would know where she was. Even supposing that so unimportant a person as poor little Rotha Carpenter were not already and utterly forgotten. That was most probable, and anything different was not to be assumed. Continued care for her would have forwarded some testimonials of its existence, in letters or messages. Who should say that it had not? was the next instant thought. They would have come to her aunt, and her aunt would never have delivered them.
This sort of speculation, natural enough, is besides very exasperating. It broke up Rotha's peace for that day and took all the pleasure out of her garden work. She went on pulling up weeds and forking up the soil, but she did the one with a will and the other with a vengeance; staid out longer than usual, and came in tired.
"Joe," said Mrs. Purcell meanwhile in the solitude of her kitchen, "I'll bet you a cookie, Mis' Busby's up to some tricks!"
CHAPTER XXVII.
INQUIRIES.
The weeks went on now without any change but the changes of the season. Rotha's flower borders bloomed up into beauty; somewhat old-fashioned beauty, but none the worse for that. Hypericum and moss pink faded away; the roses blossomed and fell; sweet English columbines lifted their sonsy heads, pale blue and pale rose, and dark purple; poppies sprang up, as often in the gravel road as in the beds; lilies came and went; the laburnum shook out its clusters of gold; old honeysuckles freshened out and filled all the air with the fragrance of their very sweet flowers. Rotha's tulip tree came into blossom, and was a beautiful object from her high window which looked right into the heart of it. Rotha grew very fond of that tulip tree. There were fruits too. The door in the fence, which she had noticed on her first expedition to the barnyard, was found to be the entrance to a large kitchen garden. Truly, Joe Purcell cultivated few vegetables; cabbages however were in number and variety, also potatoes, and that resource of the poor, onions.