CHAPTER XXIX.

PERPLEXITIES.

She went in with a lapful of pears. By the way she had made up her mind not to speak of what had happened. She had been considering. Joe and Prissy were certainly kind to her, and kindly disposed; yet, what had become of her letters? They had all been intrusted to Mr. Purcell, to mail or have mailed in Tanfield. Did that fact stand in connection with the other fact, that no answers ever came? It was plain now that Mrs. Busby had been playing a deep game; plain that it had been her purpose to keep Rotha hidden away at least from one person. Rotha was the least in. the world of a suspicious nature; nevertheless she felt uncertain what course Joe and Prissy might see fit to take if they knew of what was planning; she resolved they should not know. If only they had not seen Mr. Southwode already! he _would_ stand so in sight of the house. But Prissy looked very unsuspicious.

"Well, I do think!" she began. "I should say, you wanted some pears. What ever did you s'pose was goin' to be done with 'em?"

"Eat them!" said Rotha cheerily, emptying her apronful upon the table.

"The boards is just scoured! And them aint the kind."

"The kind for what? They are ripe, are they not?"

"Ripe enough for doin' up. I can make pear honey of 'em. They'd ha' been good done with molasses, if I'd ha' had 'em in time. You can't do nothin' with 'em as they be. They'd draw your mouth all up."

Rotha looked at her pears and laughed. "Shews how much I know!" she said.

"Folks as lives in the City o' Pride don't know much o' things!" remarked Prissy.

"The City of Pride. Why do you call New York that?"

"Aint it?"

"I do not know that there is more pride there than in other places. Pride is in people--not in the places where people live. I think _you_ are pretty proud, Prissy."

"That's all us has got to keep us up," rejoined Mrs. Purcell. "Do you think pride's wrong?"

"Yes, and so do you, if you believe your little book up there on the mantelpiece."

"What's in it about pride?" inquired Prissy quickly.

"Do you not recollect? The Lord said, 'How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another.' Here it is." She took the little volume from the mantel shelf and found the place. Prissy looked at it.

"What's the harm?" she said.

"Never mind, if you don't understand. The Lord said it; and he knows."

"What's come to you?" Prissy asked suddenly. "You're twice as much of a girl as you was this mornin'."

"Am I?"

"Somethin's done you a heap o' good. Your face is fired up; and your eyes is two colours, and there's somethin' shinin' out o' 'em."

"I do feel better," said Rotha soberly. And after that she was careful to be sober as long as supper lasted.

When she went up to her room she sat down to think at leisure. The light was fading out of the depths of the tulip tree; the stars were twinkling in the dark blue; the still air was a little frosty. Yes, the year had sped on a good part of its course, since that May evening when Rotha had first made friends with the big tulip tree. Near five months ago it was, and now the days were growing short again. O was it possible that her release had come? And not the release she had hoped for, but this? so much better! Only five months; and her little imprisonment was ended, and its lessons all--_were_ they all--learned? With her heart filling and swelling, Rotha sat by her window and thought everything over, one thing after another. She had trusted; she might have trusted better!

Her aunt's sending her to this place had separated her from nothing, not even from Mr. Digby. Here he was, and had her again under his protection; and it was _he_ henceforth who would say what she should do and where she should go. Not Mrs. Busby henceforth. Rotha's heart thrilled and throbbed with inexpressible joy. Not without queer other thrills also, of what might be described as an instinct of scruple; a certain inner consciousness that in this condition of things there was somewhat anomalous and difficult to adjust. Yet I am by no means sure that this consciousness did in any wise abate the joy. Rotha went over now in imagination all her interview with Mr. Southwode; recalled all he said, and remembered how he looked at each turn of the conversation. And the more she mused, the more her heart bounded. Till at last she recollected that there was something else to be' done before eleven o'clock to- morrow; and she went from reverie to very busy activity.

It was all done, all she had to do, before breakfast time next day. After breakfast Rotha was in great doubt how to manage. If she dressed for her departure, Mr. and Mrs. Purcell would find out that something was going to happen, and perhaps try to hinder it. If she waited in her room until called for, she did not know but they would deny her being in the house at all and bar access to her. Doubtless Mr. Digby would not be permanently barred out, or thwarted in what he meant to do; but Rotha could not endure the thought of delay or disappointment. She would have gone out to meet him; but she was no longer a child, and a feeling of maidenly reserve forbade her. She made everything ready; knew she could change her dress in five minutes; and went down to the kitchen about ten o'clock; she could not stay any longer away from the scene of action. She took a knife and helped Mrs. Purcell pare the pears for stewing.

"You have been very kind to me, Prissy," she said, after some time of busy silence.

"'Cause I warnt no more put out about the pears, you mean? Well, I'll tell you. I was fit to bite a tenpenny nail off, when I see you come in with that lapful last night. But I knowed you didn't know no better. If Joe warn't so set I'd make him pick the pears; but he always says and sticks to it, the fruits o' the earth what grows on trees aint no good. He'll eat 'em fast enough, I tells him, and so he will; as long as I'll stand to cook 'em; but he won't lift never a hand to get 'em off the trees. No thin' but corn and oats, and them things, is work for a man, he thinks."

"Unreasonable--" said Rotha.

"When isn't men unreasonable?--What do you want, sir? This aint the front o' the house."

And Rotha came round with a start, for there, at the door of the kitchen, at the top of the steps leading up from the scullery, stood Mr. Southwode; and Prissy's question had been put with a strong displeased emphasis.

"I know it," said the intruder in answer, "and I beg your pardon; but-- Does anybody live at the front of the house?

"Them as tries, finds out," said Mrs. Purcell, with a fierce knitting of her brows.

"That is also true, as I have learned by experience. I found that nobody lived there."

"Who did you think lived there? Who do you want?" asked Prissy, ungrammatically, but pointedly.

"Am I speaking to Mrs. Purcell?" And then the new-comer smiled at Rotha and shook hands with her.

"That is my name," said Prissy. "It aint her'n."

"I am aware of that too," said the stranger composedly, "and my present business is with Mrs. Purcell. I wish to know, in the first place, how many weeks Miss Carpenter has been in your house?"

"What do you want to know for?" said Prissy. "Is it any business o' yourn?"

"Yes. I may say it is nobody else's business. You have a right to ask; and that is my answer."

"What do you want to know for?"

"I wish to discharge your account. Miss Carpenter promised that you should be honestly paid, when the time came; and the time is come now."

"Be you come from Mis' Busby?"

"I saw Mrs. Busby a few days ago."

"And she sent you?"

"I am not honoured with any commission from Mrs. Busby. As I told you, this business is mine, not hers."

"Mis' Busby put her here in us's care; and us is bound to take care of her, Joe and me. Us can't take no orders but from Mis' Busby."

"No; but you can take money? Mrs. Busby, I think, will not pay you. I will. But I must do it now. I am going away, and may probably never come this way again."

"I don't see what you have to do, a payin' Miss Carpenter's o win's," said Prissy, eyeing him suspiciously from head to foot.

"The best reason in the world.--Rotha, will you go and get ready?"--and then as the door closed upon Rotha Mr. Southwode went on.--"Miss Carpenter has been under my care ever since she lost her mother. I placed her with her aunt when I was obliged to go abroad, to England; and now I am come to take her away."

"To take Rotha away?" cried Prissy.

"To take Miss Carpenter away."

"Maybe Mis' Busby don't want her to go."

"Maybe not. But that is of no consequence. Let me have your account, please."

"Be you goin' to many her?" Prissy asked suddenly.

"That is not a question you have any need to ask."

"I asks it though,"--returned Prissy sturdily. "Be you?"

"No."

"Then I wish you'd go and talk to Mr. Purcell, 'cos I don' know nothin' about it. If you was goin' to marry her, stands to reason everything else gives way; folks must get married, if they has a mind to; but if you aint, I don't see into it, and don't see no sense in it. Mr. Purcell's at the barn. I wish you'd just go and talk to him."

"I have had trouble enough to find you," said the gentleman; "I shall not try to find Mr. Purcell. If you wish me to see him, I will wait here till you bring him."

And so saying, Mr. Southwode deposited his hat on the table and himself sat down. Prissy gave him glance after glance, unsatisfied and uneasy. She did long to refer things to Joe; and she saw she could not manage her unwelcome visiter; so finally she took off her apron and threw it over her head and set off on a run for the barn. Meanwhile Rotha came down, all ready for the drive.

"Where are they all?" she exclaimed.

"One gone after the other. I think, Rotha, it will be the pleasantest way for you, to go out at once to the carriage and wait there for me; if you will let me be so discourteous. You may as well escape the discussion I must hold with these people. Where is your luggage?"

"I have only one little trunk, up stairs at the top of the house. The rest of my things are at aunt Busby's."

"We will not ask her for them. I will take care of your box and bring it along. And give me this."

He took Rotha's handbag from her hand as he spoke and dismissed her with a smile; and Rotha, feeling as if all sorts of burdens were lifted from her at once, went out and went round to where a phaeton was waiting at the front of the house. And there she stood, with her heart beating; remembering her sad coming five months before: (but the five months seemed five years;) thinking of all sorts of incongruous things; uncertain, curious as what was to be done with her; congratulating herself that she had _one_ nice dress, her travelling dress, which she had carefully saved until now; and wondering what she should do for others, her calicos being a good deal worn and only working dresses at the best. So she stood waiting; doubtful, yet on the whole most glad; questioning, yet unable to be anxious; while five minutes after five minutes passed away. At last came the procession; Prissy in front, her husband following with Rotha's trunk on his shoulders, Mr. Southwode bringing up the rear.

"I never thought you'd go like _that_," said Prissy reproachfully. "If us is poor folks, us has hands clean enough to shake."

"I never meant to go without bidding you good bye, Prissy," said Rotha, grasping her hand heartily,

"Looks awful like it--" rejoined Mrs. Purcell.

"I shall always remember your kindness to me," Rotha went on.

"Pay and forget!" said Prissy. "It's all paid for now; and it's us as must give thanks." Then she added in a lower tone, "Where be you goin' now?"

"To Tanfield first, I suppose."

Prissy looked significantly at Mr. Southwode, who was ordering the disposition of the trunk, and had evidently more in her thoughts than she chose to utter. Then Joe came with his hand outstretched for a parting grasp, his face smiling with satisfaction.

"Well," he said, "we've all done the best we could; and nobody has anything to be sorry for. But we shall miss you, bad!"

"All he cares for 's the pears!" said his wife. "Come along, Joe; if you are good, I'll get you some."

The wagon drove off before Rotha could hear Joe's answer. She was gone! The weary months of imprisonment were done and passed. What was to follow now?

Rotha could not think, could not care. The phaeton was rolling smoothly along; she was traversing easily the long stretch of highway she had looked at so often; her old best friend was in charge of her; Rotha gave up care. Yet questions would come up in her mind, though she dismissed them as fast; and her heart kept singing for joy. She did not even ask whither she was driven.

She was going to the hotel at Tanfield, the same where she had once put up alone. Here her box was ordered to a room which seemed to have been made ready for her; and Mr. Southwode remarked that lunch would be ready presently. Rotha took off her hat and joined him in the private room where it was prepared. A wood fire was burning, and a table was set, and the October sun shone in, and Mr. Digby was there reading a paper. Rotha put her hand upon her eyes; it seemed too much brightness all at once. Mr. Southwode on his part laid down his paper and looked at her; he was noticing with fresh surprise the changes that three years had made. Truly, _this_ was not what he left in Mrs. Busby's care. And there is no doubt Mr. Southwode as well as Rotha had something to think of; and questions he had been debating with himself since yesterday came up with new emphasis and urgency. Nothing of all this shewed. He laid down his paper, stirred up the fire, gave Rotha an easier chair than the one she had first chosen, and took a seat opposite her.

"We have got to begin all over again," he smilingly remarked.

"Oh no!" said Rotha. "I do not think so."

"Why? We cannot be said to know one another now, can we?"

"I know you--" said Rotha a little lower.

"Do you? But I do not know you."

"I am just what I used to be," the girl said briskly, raising her head.

"By your own shewing, _not_. The bird I left would have beat its wings lame against the bars of the cage I found it in."

"I did beat my wings pretty lame at first," said Rotha; "but not in this cage."

"In what one then?" he asked quickly.

"Oh--after you went away. I mean that time."

"What made the cage at that time?"

"Aunt Serena--and aunt Serena's house."

"I was a little afraid of it. But I could not help myself. What did she do?"

Rotha hesitated a little.

"I do not think it is any use to go back to it now," she said. "It was partly my own fault. I had meant fully to do just as you said, and be polite and quiet and pleasant;--and I could not!"

"And so--?"

"And so, we had bad times. After aunt Serena kept me from seeing you and bidding you good bye, or even knowing that you were gone, I could not forgive her. And she knew she had wronged me. And that people do not forget."

"You thought I had too, eh?"

"No," said Rotha; "not then. I knew it was her doing."

"It was wholly her doing. Whenever I came and asked for you, I was always told that you were out, or sick in bed, or in some way quite unable to see me. And my going was extremely sudden, so that I had no time to take measures; other than to write to you and enclose my address."

"I never got it. And all those times I was always at home, and perfectly well, and sometimes--"

"Well--what?"

"Sometimes I was standing in the hall up stairs, leaning over the balusters and listening to your steps in the hall."

Colour rose in Rotha's cheek, and her voice took a tone which told tales; and Mr. Southwode thought he did begin to recognize his little friend of old time.

"And then--" Rotha went on, "you know what I used to be, and can guess that I was not very patient."

"I can guess that. And what are you now?"

She flashed one of her quick looks at him, smiled and blushed. "I have grown a little older--" she said.

Mr. Southwode quite perceived that. He was inclined to believe that what he had before him was the ripened fruit which in its green state he had tried so hard to bring into the sun; grown sweet and rich beyond his hopes. He turned the conversation however, took up his paper again and read to Rotha a paragraph concerning some late events in Europe; from which they went off into a talk leading far from personal affairs, to the affairs of nations past and present, and branching off into questions of history and literature. And Mr. Southwode found again the Rotha of old, only with the change I have above indicated. The talk was lively for an hour, until lunch was served. It was served for them alone, in the room where they were. As they took their places at table and the meal began, for a few minutes there was silence.

"This is like--and not like--the old time," Mr. Southwode remarked smiling.

"I think it is more 'not like,'" said Rotha.

"Why, pray?"

Rotha hesitated. "I said just now I had not changed; but in some things I have."

"Grown a little taller."

"A good deal, Mr. Southwode! And that is the least of the changes, I suppose."

"What are the others? Come, it is the very thing it imports me to know. And the quicker the better. Tell me all you can."

"About myself?"

"I mean, about yourself!"

"That's difficult."

"I admit it is difficult; but easier for a frank nature, such as yours used to be, than for another."

Meanwhile he helped her to things on the table, taking care of her in the manner he used to do in old time. It put a kind of spell upon Rotha. The old instinct of doing what he wished her to do seemed to be springing up in its full imperativeness.

"What do you want to know?" she asked doubtfully.

"Everything!"

"Everything is not much, in this case. I have lived most of the time, till last May, with Mrs. Mowbray; at school."

"What did you do at school?"

"Nothing. I _began_ to do, that is all. I have just begun to learn. Just began to feel that I was getting hold of things, and that they were growing most delightful. Then all was broken on ."

"That was last May?"

"Yes."

"Why do you suppose your aunt chose just that time to send you here?"

"I have no idea! She was going to Chicago, she said--"

"You know she did not go?"

"Did not go? She was in New York all this summer?"

"So I understood from herself In New York or near it."

"Then what _did_ she mean by sending me here, Mr. Digby? She did not know you were coming."

"You think that knowledge would have affected her measures?"

"I know it would!"

"It is an unfruitful subject to inquire into. I am afraid your vacations can hardly have been pleasant times, spent in your aunt's family?"

"I was not always with her. Quite as often I staid with Mrs. Mowbray--my dear Mrs. Mowbray! and with her I went to Catskill, and to Niagara, and to Nahant, and to the Adirondacks. I had great times. It was the next best thing to--to the old days, when I was with you."

"I should think it would have been much better," Mr. Southwode said, forbidding the smile that was inclined to come. For Rotha's manner did not make her words less flattering.

"Do you? Do you not know me better than that, Mr. Digby?" said Rotha, feeling a little injured.

"I suppose I do! You were always an unreasonable child. But I can understand how you should regret Mrs. Mowbray."

"Now?" said Rotha. "I do not regret anything now. I am too happy to tell how happy I am."

"I remember, you are gifted with a great capacity for happiness," Mr. Southwode said, letting the smile come now.

"It is a good thing," said Rotha. "Sometimes, even this summer, I could forget my troubles in my flower beds. Did you notice in what nice order they were, and how many flowers still?"

"I am afraid I did not specially notice."

"Awhile ago they were full of bloom, and lovely. And when I took them in hand they were a wilderness. Nobody had touched them for ever so long. I had a job of it. But it paid."

"What else have you done this summer?"

"Nothing else, except study my Bible. It was all the study I had."

"How did you study it? as a disciple? or as an inquirer?"

"O, as a disciple. Can one really _study_ it in any other way?"

"I am afraid so. There is deep study, and there is superficial study, you know. Then you are a disciple, Rotha?"

"Yes, Mr. Southwode; a sort of one. But I am one."

"When did that come about?"

"Not so very long after you went away. I came to the time that you told me of, that it would come."

"What time? I do not recollect."

"A time when everything failed me."--Rotha felt somehow disappointed, that she should remember so much better than he did.

"And then you found Christ?"

"Yes,--after a while."

"What have you been doing for him since then?"

"Doing for him?" Rotha repeated.

"Yes."

"I do not know. Not much. I am afraid, not anything."

"Was that because you thought there was not much to do?"

"N--o," said Rotha thoughtfully; "I did not think _that_. Only nothing particular for me to do."

"That was a mistake."

"I did not see anything for me to do."

"Perhaps. But the Lord has no servants to be idle. If they do not see their work, it is either that their eyes are not good, or that they are looking in the wrong direction."

A silence followed this statement, during which Rotha was thinking.

"Mr. Digby, what do you mean by their eyes being not good?"

"Not seeing clearly."

"And what makes people's eyes dim to see their work?"

"A want of sensitiveness in their optic nerve," he said smiling. "It is written, you know the words--'He died for all, that they which live should not live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them'--How has it been in your case?"

"I never thought of it," Rotha answered slowly. "I believe my head has been just full of myself,--learning and enjoying."

"I do not want to check either, and the service of Christ does not check either. I am glad, after all, the _enjoying_ has formed such a part of your experience."

"With Mrs. Mowbray, how should it not? You know her a little, Mr. Southwode?"

"Only a little."

"But you cannot know her, for you never needed her. O such a friend as she is! Not to me only, but to whoever needs her. She goes along life with her hands full of blessings, and she is forever dropping something into somebody's lap; if it is not help, it is pleasure; if it is not a fruit, it is a flower. I never saw anybody like her. She is a very angel in the shape of a woman; and she is doing angel's work all the day long. I have seen, and I know. All sorts of help, and comfort, and cheer, and tenderness, and sympathy; and herself is the very last person' in all the world she thinks of."

"That's a pretty character," said Mr. Southwode.

"It comes out in everything," Rotha went on. "It is not in giving only; she is forever making everybody happy, if she can. There are some people you cannot make happy. But nursing them when they are sick, and comforting them when they are in trouble, and helping them when they are in difficulty, and supplying them when they are in need, and if they are none of those things, then just throwing flowers in their lap,--that is Mrs. Mowbray. Yes, and she can reprove them when they are wrong, too; and that is a harder service than either."

"In how many of all these ways has she done you good, Rotha? if I may ask."

"It is only pleasant to answer, Mr. Digby. In all of them." And Rotha's eyes filled full, and her cheek took fire.

"Not 'supplying need' also?"

"O yes! O that was one of the first things her kind hand did for me. Mr. Southwode, do you know, many people criticise her for the use she makes of her money; they call her extravagant, and indiscreet, and all that. They say she ought to lay up her money."

"Quite natural."

"But it hurt me sometimes."

"It need not hurt you. There is another judgment, which is of more importance. 'There is, that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches.' And there is, 'that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God.' But the world must weigh according to its balances, and they are too small to take heaven in."

A pause followed. With the going back to Mrs. Mowbray and all the memories connected with her, a sort of mist of association began to rise in Rotha's mind, to dim the new brightness of the present time. Uneasy half recollections of words or manner, or perhaps rather of the impression that words and manner had left behind them, began to come floating in upon her joyousness. The silence lasted.

"What did you learn with Mrs. Mowbray?" Mr. Southwode asked at length.

"Beginnings of things," said Rotha regretfully; "only beginnings. I had not time fairly to learn anything."

"Beginnings of what?"

"French, Latin, geometry and algebra, history of course, philosophy, chemistry,--those were the principal things. I was going into geology, and I wanted to learn German; but Mrs. Mowbray thought I was doing enough already."

"Enough, I should think. Music?"

"O no!" said Rotha smiling.

"Drawing?"

"No," said the girl with a sigh this time. "Mrs. Mowbray could not give me everything you know, for she has others to help. And aunt Serena would not have heard of such a thing."

"What would you like to do now, Rotha?"

"Do? About what, Mr. Digby?"

"Learning. I suppose you would like to go on in all these paths of knowledge you have entered?"

Rotha looked towards him a little doubtfully. How did he mean? Himself to be her teacher again? But his next words explained.

"You would like to go to school again?"

"Yes, of course. I should like it very much."

"Then that is one thing decided."

"Shall I go back to Mrs. Mowbray?" she asked eagerly.

Mr. Southwode hesitated, and delayed his answer.

"I would rather be at a greater distance from Mrs. Busby," he confessed then.

And Rotha made no answer. Those old impressions and associations were trooping in. She remembered that Mrs. Mowbray had never favoured the introduction of Mr. Southwode's name into their conversations; she had a dim apprehension that her influence would be thrown into Mrs. Busby's scale, and that possibly both ladies would join to prevent her, Rotha's, being under Mr. Southwode's protection and management. While not in the least suspicious, Rotha was too fine strung not to be an acute discerner. So far her thoughts went distinctly, and it was enough to tie her tongue. But beyond this, there were lights and shadows hovering on the horizon, which followed no traceable lines and revealed no recognizable forms, and yet made her feel that the social atmosphere held or might develope elements not altogether benign and peaceful. There had been words said or half said formerly, on one or two occasions, which had given her a clue she did not now like to follow out; words it would have been comfortable to forget, only Rotha did not forget. She _had_ forgotten or dismissed them, but as I said they began to come back. Besides, she was older. She could see now, simple as she was still, that in the relations between her and her guardian there was something anomalous; that for a young girl like her to be under care of a man no older than he, who was neither brother nor uncle nor any relation at all, and for her to be eating her bread at his expense, was a state of things which must be regarded as unusual, and to say the least, questionable. Poor Rotha sat thinking of this while she went on with her luncheon, and growing alternately hot and cold as she thought of it; everything being aggravated by an occasional glance at the friend opposite her, whose neighbourhood was so sweet, and every line of his face and figure so inexpressibly precious to her. For it began to dawn upon Rotha the woman, what had been utterly spurned in idea by Rotha the child, that this anomalous relation could not subsist always. She must, or he must, find a way out of it; and she preferred that it should be herself and not he. And the only way out of it that Rotha could see, was, that she should train herself to become a teacher; and so, in a very few years, a very few, come to be self-supported. It struck her heart like a bolt of ice, the thought; for the passionate delight of Rotha's heart was this very friend, from whom she began to see that she must separate herself. The greatest comfort at this moment was, that Mr. Southwode himself looked so composed and untroubled by doubts or whatever else. Yet Mr. Southwode had his own thoughts the while; and to conclude from the calmness of his face that his mind was equally uncrossed by a question, would have been to make a mistake.

"Where then, if not to Mrs. Mowbray's?" Rotha inquired at last, breaking a long silence.

"Perhaps Boston. How would you like that? Or would you be very sorry not to return to New York?"

"Yes, sorry," said Rotha, "but I think it may be best. O Boston, or anywhere, Mr. Southwode! Just what you think wisest. But--I was thinking--"

Rotha laid down her knife and fork and pushed away her plate. Her heart began to beat at an uneasy rate, and her voice grew anxious.

"May I give you some fruit?"

"No--I do not care for it--thank you."

"This looks like a good pear. Try."

It was on the whole easier to be doing something with her fingers. Rotha began to peal the pear.

"You were thinking--?" Mr. Southwode then resumed.

"I?--O yes! I was thinking--" And Rotha's pear and peel went down. "I was thinking--Mr. Digby, if I knew just what I was going to do, or be afterwards,--wouldn't it help us to know what I had better study? what preparation I ought to have?"

"Afterwards? After what?" said Mr. Southwode, without laying down his pear.

"After I have done with school."

"When do you suppose that will be?"

"I do not know. That of course would depend upon the other question."

"Not necessarily. My wish is that you should be fitted for any situation in life. A one-sided education is never to be chosen, if one can help it; and one generally can help it. We can, at any rate. What are you thinking of doing, Rotha? in that 'afterwards' to which you refer?"

"I have not thought very much about it. But you know I must do _something_. I suppose teaching would be the best. I dare say Mrs. Mowbray would take me for one of her helpers, if I were once fitted to fill the place."

"What put this in your head?"

"I suppose, _first_, some words of aunt Serena. That was her plan for me."

"I thought it was arranged that I was to take care of you."

"You are doing it," said Rotha gratefully. "But of course you could not do it always."

"Why not?"

"Why--because--" said Rotha faltering and flushing a little,--"I do not belong to you in any way. It would not be right."

"My memory is better, it seems, than yours. If I recollect right, you were given to me by your mother."

"O yes," said Rotha, flushing deeper,--"she did. But I am sure she did not mean that I should be a charge upon you, after I was able to help myself."

"You do not fancy that you can 'help yourself' now?"

"No."

"You do not judge that you are empowered to take back her gift?"

"Not exactly. But Mr. Southwode," said Rotha half laughing, "I do not see how you can keep it. I _must_ do something for myself."

"Not till I give permission. Eat your pear, and leave business to me."

It rather comforted Rotha that this command was given to her; nevertheless and although the pear was a fine one, she 'chewed the cud of meditation' along with it. Very inopportunely those words heard long ago came floating back upon her memory, making her uncomfortable; making her doubt whether she could possibly remain long under the care that was so genial to her. Still, the present was too good to be spoiled, albeit the enjoyment of it was shadowed, by these reflections. I think, rather, according to some perverse principle of human nature, they made the enjoyment of it more tremblingly acute. However, the fruit was consumed in silence; Mr. 'Southwode having, as I hinted, his own thoughts. They left the table and took seats before the fire.

"Now Rotha," said her guardian, "I should like to know what you have done in these three years. Are you willing that I should try to find out?"

"By questioning me?" said Rotha laughing and flushing. "It would not be a new thing, Mr. Digby."

Whereupon Mr. Southwode went into an examination of Rotha's acquirements and mental standing. It was pleasant enough and easy enough, though it was searching; it had too much savour of old times about it to be anything but easy and pleasant. Rotha did not fear it, and so enjoyed it. And so did her examiner. He found all that he had once known possible and hoped for her. The quick intelligence of the child he found matured; the keen apprehension practised; the excellent memory stored, even beyond what he expected. And then, Rotha's capital powers of reasoning were as true and clear-sighted as ever, her feeling as just and unperverted; the thirst for knowledge was more developed and very strong; and the knowledge already laid up amounted to a stock of surprising amount and variety.

That was to both parties a very pleasant two hours. Rotha was looking, by turns, into the face she loved so well and watching the familiar face play, with the delight of one whose eyes have been long without the sight of what they loved. Moreover, she was taking up again the various threads of learning which had slipped from her hand, feeling now that her hold of them would not loose again. There was a savour of old associations, too, about this talk, which was very fascinating; and further yet, Rotha had a subtle consciousness that she was satisfying Mr. Southwode. And he on his part was making new acquaintance with his little friend of old, and noticing with a little surprise and much admiration how she had changed and grown. The face which was always so eager and expressive had taken on womanly softness and mature richness, without losing a bit of its changeful fire. The sallow skin had become clear and fine; the lines of the lips, not less passionate and not less decided than they used to be, were soft and pure; refinement was in every curve of them, and in all the face, and all the figure, and in every movement of either; and the deep, flashing eyes could be innocently merry and sweet too, and constantly answered him before the lips could speak. As one quarter of an hour sped on after another, Mr. Southwode grew less and less ready to be relieved of his charge. Yet, he asked himself, what should he do with her? He did not entertain the idea Mrs. Purcell had suggested; it was not precisely a disagreeable idea, and it recurred to him, in the midst of philosophy and mathematics; it was not a disagreeable idea, but--he had never entertained it! And he doubted besides if Rotha would easily entertain it. He knew she was fond of him, fond of being with him; but it was a childish fondness, he said to himself; it could be nothing else. It was a childish fondness, too frankly shewn to be anything more or deeper. And Rotha was very young, had seen nobody, and could not know what she would like. That she would do anything he asked her, he had little doubt; she would marry him if he asked her; but Mr. Southwode did not want a wife on those terms. What should he do with her? Yes, he knew the difficulties, much better than she knew them; he knew how people would talk, and how under the circumstances they would have reason to talk; which Rotha knew not. All which troublesome elements of the relation subsisting between them, only somehow made Mr. Southwode hold to it the faster. Probably he was by nature an obstinate man.

Upon the pause which followed the end of her examination came a question of Rotha.

"Are you going to stay in this country now, Mr. Southwode?"

"My home is in England," he answered, rousing himself out of reverie.

Rotha's heart sank at that; sank sadly. Next came a recoil of her reason--Yes, you had better go away, if I cling to you in this fashion!

"Why?" was his next counter question. "What makes you ask?"

"I did not know," said Rotha. "I wanted to know. I heard people say you would live over there."

"What else have you heard people say about me?"

"Not much. Aunt Serena never spoke of you, I think, if she could help it. I have only heard somebody say that you were very rich--that your home would be over there now, probably;--and that you would concern yourself no more about me," Rotha added, in the instinct of truth.

"Kind judgment," said Mr. Southwode; "but in this case not true. The rest is true, that I have a large property."

He went on to tell Rotha several things about himself; not using many words, at the same time not making any mystery of it. He told her that his very large means came from business; that the business was in hands which made it unnecessary that he should give to the oversight of it more than a portion of his time. He had a home in England, and he described it; in the Lake country, surrounded with beautiful scenery. He was very fond of it, but he was not a fixture there; on the contrary, he went wherever there was reason for him to go, or work to be done by his going. "So I am here now, you see." he concluded.

And so, something else may take you back again, and keep you there! thought Rotha; but she did not say what she thought, nor indeed say anything. Mr. Southwode's detail, while it interested her terribly, and in a sort nattered her, also reduced her to a very low feeling of downheartedness. What was she to him, the poor little American orphan, to the rich English gentleman? what but just one of his various and probably many objects of benevolence? What more could she be, in the nature of things? No; she had been quite right; what she had to do was to equip herself as speedly as possible for the battle of life, and dash into it as a teacher; and only remember as a kind of fairy tale the part of her life when he had been its guardian and protector. Rotha's heart swelled; yet she would shew nothing of that. She sat still and moveless; too still and unchanging, in fact, for the supposition that her thoughts were not whirling round a fixed centre. I do not know how much of this Mr. Southwode read, I am not sure but the whirl of his own thoughts occupied him sufficiently. However, when this still silence had lasted a little while, he broke it up by proposing to take Rotha a drive. "You used to like it," he remarked. Rotha did not like it less now. She went to get ready; thinking to herself that it was maybe the very last time. Why had she come to Tanfield at all? and why had Mr. Southwode sought her out there? Better if she could have remained as she was, and he no more than a locked up treasure of the past kept in her memory.