"Thank you. How are my young friends in the family?"
"The girls? Quite well, thank you, They are unluckily neither of them at home."
"Not at home! I am sorry for that. How has my child developed?" he asked with a slight smile.
"She has grown into a young woman," Mrs. Busby answered, with one of those utterly imperceptible, yet thoroughly perceived, changes of manner which speak of a mental check received or a mental protest made. It was not a change of manner either; nothing so tangible; I cannot tell what it was in her expression that Mr. Southwode instantly saw and felt, and that put him upon his guard and upon his mettle at once. Mrs. Busby had drawn her shawl closer round her; that was all the outward gesture. She always wore a shawl. In winter it was thick and in summer it was gossamer; but one way or another a shawl seemed essential to Mrs. Busby's well-being. What Mr. Southwode gathered from her words was a covert rebuke and rebuff. He was informed that Rotha was grown up.
"It is hard to realize that," he said lightly. "It seems but the other day that I left her; and since then, nothing else has changed!"
"She has changed," said Mrs. Busby drily.
"May I ask, how?—besides the physical difference, which to be sure was to be looked for?"
"I do not know that there is any other particular change."
"That would disappoint me," said Mr. Southwode. "I hoped to find a good deal of mental growth and improvement as the fruit of these three years. She has been at school all the time?"
"Yes."