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."
"What is her school record?"
"Very fairly good," said Mrs. Busby, turning her eyes now upon the young man, whom for the last few minutes they had avoided. "I did not know you were so much interested in Rotha, Mr. Southwode."
"She was my charge, you are aware. Her mother left her to my care."
"Until she was placed in mine," said Mrs. Busby with dignity. "I hope you believe that I am able to take good care of her?"
"I should be very sorry to doubt that, and no one who knows Mrs. Busby could question it for a moment. But a charge is a charge, you know. To resign it or delegate it is not optional. I regard myself as Rotha's guardian always, and it was as her guardian that I entrusted her to you."
Mrs. Busby did not answer this, and did not change a muscle in face or figure.
"And so," Mr. Southwode went on, smiling,--he was amused, and he appreciated Mrs. Busby,--"it is as her guardian that I am asking an account of her now."
"I have given it," said Mrs. Busby; and she moved her lips as if they were dry, which however her utterance was not. It was pleasant.
"The young ladies can hardly be expected home early, I suppose?" said Mr. Southwode, looking at his watch.
"Hardly"--returned Mrs. Busby in the same way.
"When can I see Rotha to-morrow?"
"To-morrow," said Mrs. Busby, speaking leisurely, "you will hardly see her. She is not at home. I said that before, but you understood me to speak of the evening merely."
"Where is she then? I can go to her."
"No, you cannot," said Mrs. Busby half smiling, but it was not a smile Mr. Southwode liked. "She is at a friend's house in the country."
"Not in New York! How long do you expect her to be absent?"
"That I cannot possibly tell. It depends on circumstances that I do not know."
Mr. Southwode pondered. "Will you favour me with her address?" he asked, taking out his notebook.
"It is not worth the while," said the lady quietly. "She is at a considerable distance from New York, too far for you to go to her; and she may be home any day. It depends, as I said, on what I do not now know."
"And may be delayed yet for some time, then?"
"Possibly."
"Will you give me her address, Mrs. Busby."
Mr. Southwode's pencil was ready, but instead of giving him something to do with it, Mrs. Busby rang the bell. Pencil and notebook waited.
"Lesbia, go up to my dressing room and bring me a little green book with a clasp lying on my table there."
A few minutes of silence and waiting; then Lesbia returned with the announcement, "There aint no sort o' little book there, Mis' Busby. There's a heap o' big ones, but they aint green."
"Go again and look in the left hand drawer."
Lesbia came again. "Aint nothin' there but papers."
"That will do. Mr. Southwode, I have not my address book, and without that I cannot give you what you want. The name of the post-office town is very peculiar, and I always forget it. But I can write to Rotha to-morrow and summon her, if you think it necessary."
"Would that be an inexpedient measure?"
"You must judge. I have not thought best to do it; but if it is necessary I can do it now."
"I will not give you so much trouble. If you will allow me, I will come again to morrow evening, and get the address."
"To-morrow evening!" said the lady slowly. "I am very sorry, I have an engagement; I shall not be at home to-morrow evening."
Why did it not occur to Mrs. Busby to say that she would leave the address for him, if he would call for it? Mr. Southwode quietly put up his pencil, and remarked that another time would do; and passed on easily to make inquiries about what New York had been doing since he went away? Mrs. Busby told him of certain buildings and plans for buildings here and there, and then suddenly asked,
"When did you come, Mr. Southwode?"
"I landed to-day."
"To-day! Rotha would be very much flattered if she knew how prompt you have been to seek her out."
It was said with a manner meant to be smoothly insinuating, but which somehow had missed the smoothness. Mrs. Busby for that moment had lost the hold she usually kept of herself.
"Rotha would expect no less of me," Mr. Southwode answered calmly.
"Then you and she must have been great friends before you went away? greater then I knew."
"Did Rotha not credit me with so much?" he asked with a smile, which covered a sharp observation of the lady, examining him.
"To tell you the truth," said Mrs. Busby, with a manner which was intended to be gracious, "I did not encourage her. Knowing what gentlemen, and young gentlemen, generally are, I thought it unlikely that you would much remember Rotha amid the pressure of your business in England, and very likely that things might turn out so that she would never see you again. I expected every day to hear that you were married; and of course that would have been an end of your interest in her."
"Why do you think so, may I ask?"
"_Why?_ Every woman knows," said Mrs. Busby in amused fashion.
"I will not marry till I find a woman that does not know," said Mr. Southwode shaking his head.
"Now that is unreasonable, Mr. Southwode."
"I do not think so. Prove it."
"I cannot prove it to a man. I have only a woman's knowledge, of what he does not understand. And besides, Mr. Southwode, it is quite right and proper that it should be so. A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife; and if his father and mother, surely everybody else."
"As I am not married, the case does not come under consideration," said the gentleman carelessly. And after a pause he went on--"I have written several letters to Rotha during the time of my absence, and addressed them to your care. Did you receive them safe?"
"I received several--I do not at this moment recollect just how many."
"Do you know why they were never answered?"
"I suppose I do," said Mrs. Busby composedly. "Rotha has been exceedingly engrossed with her studies."
"She had vacations?"
"O certainly. She had vacations."
"Then can you tell me, Mrs. Busby, why Rotha never wrote to me?"
"I am afraid I cannot tell you," the lady answered slowly, looking into the fire.
"Do you think Rotha has forgotten me?"
"It is not like her, I should say, to forget. I never hear her mention you. But then, I see her little except in the vacations, and not always then; she was often carried off from me."
"By whom, may I ask?"
"O by her school teacher."
"And that was--? Pardon me, but it concerns me to know all about Rotha I can."
"I am not sure if I am justified in telling you."
"Why not?"
"I think," said Mrs. Busby with an appearance of candour, "my guardianship is the proper one for her. How can you be her guardian, while she lives in my house, Mr. Southwode? Or how can you be her guardian out of it?"
"I promised her mother," he said. "How a promise shall be fulfilled, may admit of question; but not whether it shall be fulfilled."
"I know of but one way," Mrs. Busby went on, eyeing him now intently. "If you tell me you are intending to take _that_ way,--then I have no more to say, of course. But I know of but one way in which it can be done."
Mr. Southwode laughed a little, a low, soft laugh, that in him always meant amusement. "I did not promise _that_
to her mother," he said, "and I cannot promise it to you. It might be convenient, but I do not contemplate it."
"Then, Mr. Southwode, I feel it my duty to request that you fulfil your promise by acting through me."
It was well enough said; it was not without some ground of reason. If he could have felt sure of Mrs. Busby, it might have received, partially at least, his concurrence. But he was as far as possible from feeling sure of Mrs. Busby; and rather gave her credit for playing a clever mask. Upon a little