"So am I," said Mr. Southwode laughing; "but I do not see why, to save her from being punished, I should punish myself."
Through the rooms behind them now came another step, and Mrs. Mowbray presently entered the little room, which was full when the three were in it. She was in a white summer robe, her hair in its simple coil at the back of her head shewing the small head and its fine setting to great advantage. Nothing more elegant, more sweet, more gracious can be imagined, than her whole presence. It was not school time; duty was not laying a heavy hand of pressure upon her heart and brain; there was the loveliest expression of rest, and good will, and sparkling sympathy, and ready service, in her whole face and manner. She sat down, and for a while the talk flowed on in general channels, full of interest and vitality however; Mrs. Mowbray had learned to know Mr. Southwode by this time, and had thoroughly accepted him; in fact I think she liked him almost as well as she liked Rotha. The talk went on mainly between those two. Rotha herself was silent when she could be so. She was grave and soft, full of a very fair dignity; evidently her approaching marriage was a somewhat awful thing to her; and though her manner was simple and frank as a child in her intercourse with Mr. Southwode, yet after the fashion of her excitable nature the sensitive blood in her cheeks answered every allusion to Monday, or even the mention of her bridegroom's name when he was not by, or the sound of his step when he came. Mrs. Mowbray was delighted with her; nothing could be more sweet than this delicate consciousness which was grave and thoughtful without ever descending to shyness or hardening to reserve. As for Mr. Southwode, he saw little of it, Rotha was so exactly herself when she was with him; yet now as the talk went on between him and Mrs. Mowbray his eye wandered continually to the eyes which were so downcast, and the quiet withdrawn figure which held itself a little more back than usual.
"And what are your movements?" inquired Mrs. Mowbray at length. "Do you go straight home?"
"I think we shall take a roundabout way through Switzerland and Germany, and stay there awhile first."
"You are carrying away from me my dearest pupil," said Mrs. Mowbray. "She has never been anything but a blessing in my house, ever since she came into it. If she is as good to you as she has been to me, you will have nothing left to ask for. But I grudge her to you!"
"I find that very pardonable," said Mr. Southwode with a smile.
"I was dreadfully set against you at first," Mrs. Mowbray went on, with a manner between seriousness and archness. "I tried hard to make out to my satisfaction that Rotha had accepted you only out of gratitude—in which case I should have made fight; but I found I had no ground to stand on."
Here Rotha made a diversion. She came, as Mrs. Mowbray finished her speech, and kneeled down on a cushion at her feet, laying one hand in her friend's hand.
"Mrs. Mowbray—this vacation we shall not be there but next summer, if all's well, you will come and spend the whole time at Southwode?"
"Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Mowbray, "I never know a year beforehand what will become of me!"