XIV.
"I don't want any more tea, thank you," said Cornelia, "and there isn't anything to tell."
"There must be!" the other girl insisted, clinging to her bottle with tragic intensity. "Any one can see that you've lived. What part of the country did you come from?"
"Ohio," said Cornelia, as the best way to be done with it.
"And have you ever been in Santa Fé?"
"Goodness, no! Why, it's in New Mexico!"
"Yes; I was born there. Then my father went to Colorado. He isn't living, now. Are your father and mother living?"
"My mother is," said Cornelia; the words brought up a vision of her mother, as she must be sitting that moment in the little front-room, and a mist came suddenly before her eyes; she shut her lips hard to keep them from trembling.
"I see, you worship her," said Miss Maybough fervidly, keeping her gaze fixed upon Cornelia. "You are homesick!"
"I'm not homesick!" said Cornelia, angry that she should be so and that she should be denying it.