“What is it?” asked Ruth.
“My eyes, my dear—and I cannot read a word without them. Blair, we must go right back and hunt for them.”
But Blair was up and searching, not on the floor or in the road; but in the folds of Miss Thomasia’s dress; in the wrappings of the little parcel which she still held in her lap.
“Here they are, Cousin Thomasia,” she exclaimed, triumphantly drawing them out of the paper. “Right where you put them.”
Miss Thomasia gave a laugh as fresh as a girl’s.
“Why, so I did! How stupid of me!” She seated herself again, adjusted her glasses and began to unwrap her parcel.
“Here, my dear, is a little cutting I have fetched you from a rose which my dear mother brought from Kenilworth Castle, when she accompanied my dear father to England. I was afraid you might not have any flowers now, and nothing is such a panacea for loneliness as the care of a rose-bush. I can speak from experience. The old one used to grow just over my window at my old home and I took a cutting with me when we went away—General Legaie obtained the privilege of doing so—and you have no idea how much company it has been to me. I will show you how to set it out.”
The glasses were on now, and she was examining the sprig of green in the little pot with profound interest, while her needles flew.
“Where was your old home?” Ruth asked, softly.
“Here, my dear—not this place, but all around you. This was Mrs. Stamper’s—one of our poor neighbors. But we lived at Red Rock.”