pause which followed the last words, there came a ring at the door and the entrance of the young lady of the house. Antoinette was grown up excessively pretty, and was dressed to set off her prettiness. Her mother might be pardoned for viewing her with secret pride and exultation, if not for the thrill of jealous fear which accompanied the proud joy. That anybody should stand in this beauty's way!
"Mr. Southwode!" exclaimed the young lady. "It is Mr. Southwode come back. Why, Mr. Southwode, what has kept you so long? We heard you were coming five months ago. Why didn't you come then?"
Mrs. Busby wished her daughter had not said that.
"There were reasons--not interesting enough to occupy your ear with them."
"'Occupy my ear'!" repeated the girl. "That is something new. Mamma, isn't that deliciously polite! Well, what made you stay away so long, Mr. Southwode? I like to have my ear occupied."
"Should not people stay where they belong?"
"And do you belong in England?"
"I suppose, in a measure, I may say I do."
"You talk foolishly, Antoinette," her mother put in. "Don't you know that Mr. Southwode's home is in England?"
"People can change their homes, mamma. Then, you are not going to stay long, Mr. Southwode?"
"I do not know how long. That is an undecided point."
"And what have you come over for now?"
"Antoinette!" said her mother again. "I do not know if you can excuse her, Mr. Southwode; she is entirely too out-spoken. That is a question you have nothing to do with, Nettie."
"Why not, mamma? He has come for something; and if it is business, or travelling, or hunting, I would like to know."
"Hunting, at this time of year!" said Mrs. Busby.
"I might say it is business," said Mr. Southwode. "In one part of my business, perhaps you can help me."
Antoinette pricked up her ears delightedly, and eagerly asked how? and what?
"I made it part of my business to inquire about a little girl that I left three years ago under your mother's care."
"Rotha!" exclaimed Antoinette; and a cloudy shadow of displeasure and suspicion forthwith fell over her face; not tinder such good control as her mother's. "A little girl! She was not so very little."
"What sort of a girl has she turned out to be?"
"Not little now, I can tell you. She is a great deal bigger than I am. So you came to see about Rotha?"
"What can you tell me about her?"
"What do you want to know?"
"Nothing but the truth," said Mr. Southwode gravely.
"But the truth about what? Rotha is just what she used to be."
"Not changed except in inches?"
"_Inches!_ Feet!--" said Antoinette. "We don't think about inches when we look at her. I don't know about anything else. If you want an account of her studies you must ask somebody at school."
"Her teacher was yours?"
"O yes. Lately, you know, we were both in the upper class; and of course we were together in Mrs. Mowbray's lessons; but then in other things we were apart."
"How was that?"
"Studied different things," said Antoinette shortly. "Had different masters. I can't tell you about Rotha's lessons, if you want to know that." She was pulling off her gloves as she spoke, and tugged at them with an appearance of vexation, which might be due to their excellent fit and consequent difficulty of removal.
"Has she proved herself a pleasant inmate of the family?"
"She has been rather an inmate of Mrs. Mowbray's family," said Antoinette. "Mrs. Mowbray has swallowed her up and carried her off from us. _We_ don't see much of her."
"Antoinette," said her mother here, "Mr. Southwode wants to know Rotha's address; and I cannot give him the name of the place. Can you help me recollect it?"
"Never knew it, mamma. I didn't know the place had a name. I can't recollect what I never heard."
"There must be a post-office," Mr. Southwode remarked.
"Must there? O I suppose there must, somewhere; but I don't know it."
"Lesbia could not find my address book," Mrs. Busby added.
"It is a matter of no consequence," Mr. Southwode rejoined. And he presently after took his leave. A moment's silence followed his departure.
"There was no need to tell him you did not know the post-office town," said Mrs. Busby. "That was as much as to say, you never write."
"What should I write for?" returned Antoinette defiantly. "Mamma! was that all he came for? to ask about Rotha?"
"All that he came here for," said Mrs. Busby, with lines in her brow and a compressed mouth. "I wish you had not told him where Rotha went to school, either."
"Why?"
"Just as well not to say it."
"But what harm? He could ask, if he wanted to know; and then you would have to tell. What does he want her address for?"
"I don't know; but I can manage that, well enough. He knows nothing about Tanfield."
"Mamma! I wish Rotha had never come to us!" cried Antoinette with tears in her eyes.
"Don't be foolish, Antoinette. Mr. Southwode will be here again in a day or two; and then leave things to me."
Mr. Southwode meantime walked slowly and thoughtfully to the corner of the street. By that time his manner changed; and he hailed a horse car and sprang into it like a man who was suffering from no indecision in either his views or purposes. Oddly enough, the very name which Antoinette had comforted herself with thinking he did not know, had suddenly occurred to him, together with a long-ago proposition of Mrs. Busby to her sister in the latter's time of need. He had pretty well made up his mind.
Half an hour later Mr. Southwode was announced to Mrs. Mowbray.
Mrs. Mowbray recollected him; she never forgot anybody, or failed to catalogue anybody rightly in the vast collections and stores of her memory. She received Mr. Southwode therefore with the gracious courtesy and dignity which was habitual with her, and with the full measure also of her usual reserve and quick observation.
After a few commonplaces respecting his absence and his return, Mr. Southwode begged to ask if Mrs. Busby's niece, Miss Carpenter, were in her house or school?
"Miss Carpenter is not with me," Mrs. Mowbray answered guardedly.
"But she has been with you, if I understand aright?"
"She has been with me until lately."
"Are you informed that she will not return?"
"By no means! I am expecting to see her or hear from her every day. O by no means. Miss Carpenter ought to remain with me several years yet. I shall be much disappointed if she do not. It is one great mistake of parents now-a-days, that they do not give me time enough. The first two or three years can but lay a foundation, on which to build afterwards."
"May I ask, if the foundation has been successfully laid in Miss Carpenter's case? I am interested to know; because Mrs. Carpenter when she died left her child to my care; and I hold myself responsible for what concerns her."
Mrs. Mowbray hesitated slightly. "Where was Mrs. Busby?" she asked then.
"Here; but there was no intercourse between the sisters."
"Was it not by her mother's wish that Miss Carpenter was placed with her aunt?"
"No. I acted on no authority but my own."
"What sort of a woman was Mrs. Carpenter?"
"A very admirable woman. A sweet, sound, noble nature, with a great deal of quiet strength."
"Is her daughter like her?"
"Not in the least. I do not mean that she lacks some of her mother's good qualities; but they are developed differently, and with a wholly different background of temperament."
"Was there a feud between the sisters, or anything like it?"
Mr. Southwode hesitated. "I know the story," he said. "Mrs. Carpenter never complained; but I think another woman would, in her place."
"Will you allow me to ask, how she came to entrust her child to you?"
"I was the only friend at hand.
And now," Mr. Southwode went on smiling, "may I be permitted to ask another question or two? When have you heard from Miss Carpenter?"
"Not a word all summer. In the spring my school was broken up, on account of sickness in the house; I sent Rotha home to her aunt; and since then I have heard nothing from her. Not a word."
"You do not know then of course where she is?"
"With her aunt, I suppose, of course. Is she not with