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Letter Of Credit

<h4 id="id03985" style="margin-top: 2em">TANFIELD.</h4> The last time she awoke, the rush and the roar had ceased; the train was standing still in the darkness. Not utterly in the dark, for one or two miserable lamps were giving a feeble illumination; and there was a stir and a hum of voices. Another station, evidently. "What is it?" she asked somebody passing her. "Tanfield." Tanfield! and this darkness still. "What o'clock is it, please?" she asked the conductor, who just then appeared. "Three o'clock in the morning. You stop here, don't you?" "Yes; but how can I get to the hotel?" "It's just by; not a dozen steps off. Here, give me your bag—I'll see you there. We don't go on; change cars, for whoever wants to go further. You don't go further?" "No." "Then come on." Half awake, and dazed, Rotha gratefully followed her companion; who piloted the way for her out of the train and through the station house and across a street, or road rather, for it was not paved. A hotel of some pretension faced them on the other side of the street. The kind conductor marched in like one at home, sent for the sleepy chambermaid, and consigned Rotha to her care. "You would like a room and a bed, ma'am?" "A room, yes, and water to wash the dust off; but I do not want a bed. How early can you give me breakfast?" "Breakfast? there's always breakfast full early, ma'am, for the train that goes out at half past six. You'll get breakfast then. Going by the half past six train, ma'am?" "No. I shall want some sort of a carriage by and by, to drive me out to Mrs. Busby's place; do you know where that is? And can I get a carriage here?" "You can get carriages enough. I don't know about no places. Then you'll take breakfast at six, ma'am? You'll be called." With which she shewed Rotha into a bare little hotel room, lit a lamp, and left her. Rotha refreshed herself with cold water and put her hair in order. It must be half past three then. She went to the window, pulled up the shade and opened the sash and sat down. At half past three in the morning, when the season is no further advanced than May, the world is still nearly dark. Yet two cocks were answering each other from different roosts in the neighbourhood, and announcing that morning was on its way. The sky gave little token yet, however; and the stars sparkled silently out of its dark depths. The rush and the roar of the train, and of life itself, seemed to be left behind; the air had the fresh sweetness which it never can have where human beings do greatly congregate; there was a spice in it which Rotha had not tasted for a long while. That sort of spice is enlivening and refreshing; there is a good tonic in it, which Rotha felt and enjoyed; at the same time it warned her she was in new circumstances. She had an uneasy suspicion, or intuition rather, that these new circumstances were not intended, so far as her aunt's intentions affected them, to be of transient duration. It was all very well to talk of July or the beginning of August; truth has a way of making itself known independent of words and even athwart them; and so it had been now; and while Mrs. Busby talked of the middle of summer, some subtle sense in Rotha's nature translated the words and made them signify an indefinite and distant future, almost as uncertain as indefinite. Rotha could not help feeling that it might be long before she saw New York or Mrs. Mowbray again; and anew the wondering thought arose, why Mrs. Mowbray should have been incapacitated for helping her precisely at this juncture? It was mysterious. It was evident that a higher rule than Mrs. Busby's was taking effect here; it was plain that not her aunt alone had willed to put her away from all she trusted and delighted in, and bring her to this strange place; where she would be utterly alone and uncared- for and shut off from all her beloved pursuits. But why? It is the vainest of questions; yet one which in such circumstances mortals are terribly tempted to ask. If they could be told, then, the design of the movement would be lost upon their mental and spiritual education; and ten to one the ulterior developments would be hindered also which are meant to turn to their temporal advantage. It is in the nature of things, that the "why" should be hidden in darkness; without being omniscient we cannot see beforehand the turns that things will take; and so now is Faith's time to be quiet and trust and believe. And somehow faith is apt to find it hard work. Most of us know what it is to trust a human fellow creature absolutely, implicitly; with so full a trust that we are not afraid nor doubtful nor unwilling; but with one hand in the trusted one's hand are ready to go blindly anywhere, or to dare or to do gladly, counting with certainty that there is no hazard about it. So children can trust their father or their mother; so friends and lovers can trust one another. But it is very hard, somehow, to trust God so. Precisely such trust is what he wants of us; but—we do not know him well enough! "They that know thy name will put their trust in thee." Yet it is rare, rare, to find a Christian who can use Faber's words— "I know not what it is to doubt; My mind is ever gay; I run no risk, for come what will, Thou always hast thy way." Rotha at any rate had not got so far. Her mind was in a troubled state, as she sat at the window of the Tanfield hotel and stared out into the dewy dusk of the morning. It was indignant besides; and that is a very disturbing element in one's moods. She felt wronged, and she felt helpless. The sweet trust of the night seemed to have deserted her. A weary sense of loneliness and forlornness came instead, and at last found its safest expression in a good hearty fit of weeping. That washed off some of the dust from her tired spirit. When she raised her head again and looked out, the dawn was really coming up in the sky. Things were changed. There was a sweeter breath in the air; there was an indefinable stir of life in all nature. The grey soft light was putting out the stars; the tops of the trees swayed gently in a morning breeze; scents came fresher from flowers and fields; scents so rarely spicy and fragrant as dwellers in towns never know them, as all towns of men's building banish them. Birds were twittering, cocks were crowing; and soon a stir of humanity began to make itself known in the neighbourhood; a soft, vague stir and movement telling of the awaking to life and business and a new day. Feet passed along the corridor within doors, and doors opened and shut, voices sounded here and there, horses neighed, dogs barked. Rotha sat still, looking, watching, listening, with a growing spring of life and hope in herself answering to the movement without her. And then the light broadened; dusky forms began to take colour; the eastern sky grew bright, and the sun rose. Now Rotha could see about her. She was in a well-built village. Well-to- do looking house tops appeared between the leafy heads of trees that were much more than "well-to-do"; that were luxuriant, large, and old, and rich in their growth and thriving. The road Rotha could not see from her window; however, what she did see shewed that the place was built according to the generous roomy fashion of New England villages; the houses standing well apart, with gardens and trees around and between them; and furthermore there was an inevitable character of respectability and comfort apparent everywhere. Great round elm heads rose upon her horizon; and the roof trees which they shadowed were evidently solid and substantial. This town, to be sure, was not Rotha's place of abode; yet she might fairly hope to find that, when she got to it, of the like character. She sat at the window almost moveless, until she was called to her early breakfast. It was spread in a very large hall-like room, where small tables stood in long rows, allowing people to take their meals in a sort by themselves. Rotha placed herself at a distance from all the other persons who were breakfasting there, and was comfortably alone. She never forgot that meal in all her life. She wanted it; that was one thing; she was faint and tired, with her night journey and her morning watch. The place was brilliantly clean; the service rendered by neat young women, who went back and forth to a room in the rear whence the eatables were issued. And very excellent they were, albeit not in the least reminding one of Delmonico's; if Delmonico had at that day existed to let anybody remember him. No doubt, it might have been difficult to guess where the coffee was grown; but it was well made and hot and served with good milk and cream; and Rotha was exhausted and hungry. The coffee was simply nectar. The corn bread was light and sweet and tender; the baked potatoes were perfect; the butter was good, and the ham, and the apple sauce, and the warm biscuit. There was a pleasant sensation of independence and being alone, as Rotha sat at her little table in the not very brightly lit room; and it seemed as if strength and courage came back to her heart along with the refitting of her physical nature. She was not in a hurry to finish her breakfast. The present moment was pleasant, and afforded a kind of lull; after it must come action, and action would plunge her into she could not tell what. The lull came to an end only too soon. "Do you know where Mrs. Busby's place is?" she inquired of the girl that served her. "Place? No, I don't. Is it in Tanfield?" "It is near Tanfield." "You are not going by the train, then?" "No. I am going to this place. Can I get a carriage to take me there?" "I'll ask Mr. Jackson." Mr. Jackson came up accordingly, and Rotha repeated her question. He was a big, fat, comfortable looking man. "Busby?" he said with his hand on his chin—"I don't seem to recollect no Busbys hereabouts. O, you mean the old Brett place?" "Yes, I believe I do. Mrs. Busby owns it now." "That's it. Mrs. Busby. She was the old gentleman's daughter. The family aint lived here this long spell." "But there is somebody there? somebody in charge?" "Likely. Somebody to look arter things. You're a goin' there?" "If I can get a carriage to take me." "When'll you want it?" "Now. At once." "There aint no difficulty about that, I guess. Baggage?" "One small trunk." "All right I'll have the horse put to right away." So a little before eight o'clock Rotha found herself in a buggy, with her trunk behind her and a country boy beside her for a driver, on the way to her aunt's place. Eight o'clock of a May morning is a pleasant time, especially when May is near June. All the world was fresh and green and dewy; the very spirit of life in the air, and the very joy of life too, for a multitude of birds were filling it with their gleeful melody. How they sang! and how utterly perfumed was every breath that Rotha drew. She sniffed the air and tasted it, and breathed in full long breaths of it, and could not get enough. Breathing such air, one might put up with a good deal of disagreeableness in other things. The country immediately around Tanfield she found was flat; in the distance a chain of low hills shut in the horizon, blue and fair in the morning light; but near at hand the ground was very level. Fields of springing grain; meadows of lush pasture; orchards of apple trees just out of flower; a farmhouse now and then, with its comfortable barns and outhouses and cattle in the farmyard. Every here and there one or two great American elms, lifting their great umbrella-like canopies over a goodly extent of turf. Barns and houses, fences and gateways, all in order; nothing tumble-down or neglected to be seen anywhere; an universal look of thrift and business and comfort. The drive was inexpressibly sweet to Rotha, with her Medwayville memories all stirred and quickened, and the contrast of her later city life for so many years. She half forgot what lay behind her and what might be before; and with her healthy young spirit lived heartily in the present. The drive however was not very long. At the end of two miles the driver stopped and got down before a white gate enclosed in thick shrubbery. Nothing was to be seen but the gate and the green leafage of trees and shrubs on each side of it. The boy opened the gate, led his horse in, shut the gate behind him, then jumped up to his seat and drove on rapidly. The road curved in a semi-circle from that gate to another at some distance further along the road; and midway, at the point most distant from the road, stood a stately house. The approach was bordered with beds of flowers and shrubbery; a thick hedge of trees and shrubs ran along the fence that bordered the road and hid it from the house, sheltering the house also from the view of passers-by; and tall trees, some of them firs, increased the bowery and bosky effect. The house was well shut in. And the flower borders were neglected, and the road not trimmed; so that the impression was somewhat desolate. All windows and blinds and doors moreover were close and fastened; the look of life was entirely wanting. "Is there anybody here?" said Rotha, a little faint at heart. "I'll find out if there aint," said her boy companion, preparing to spring out of the wagon. "O give me the reins!" cried Rotha. "I'll hold them while you are gone." "You can hold 'em if you like, but he won't do nothin'," returned Jehu. And dashing round the corner of the house, he left Rotha to her meditations. All was still, only the birds were full of songs and pouring them out on all sides; from every tree and bush came a warble or a twitter or a whistle of ecstasy. The gleeful tones half stole into Rotha's heart; yet on the whole her spirit thermometer was sinking. The place had the neglected air of a place where nobody lives, and that has always a depressing effect. Her charioteer's absence was prolonged, too; which of itself was not cheering. At last he came dashing round the corner again. "Guess it's all right," he said. "But you'll have to git down, fur's I see; I can't git you no nearer, and she won't come to the front door. They don't never open it, ye see. So they says." Rotha descended, and bag in hand followed the boy, who piloted her round the corner of the house and along a weedy walk overhung with lilacs and syringas and overgrown rosebushes, until they were near another corner. The house seemed to be square on the ground. "There!" said he,—"you go jist roun' there, and you'll see the kitchen door—leastways the shed; and so you'll git in. Mrs. Purcell is there." "Who is Mrs. Purcell?" said Rotha stopping. "I d'n' know; she's the woman what stops here; her and Joe Purcell. She's Joe Purcell's wife. I'll git your trunk out, but you must send some un roun' to fetch it, you see." Rotha turned the second corner, while the boy went back; and a few steps more brought her round to the back of the house, where there was a broad space neatly paved with small cobble stones. An out-jutting portion of the building faced her here, and a door in the sane. This must be the "shed," though it had not really that character. Rotha went in. It seemed to be a small outer kitchen. At the house side an open ladder of steps led up to another door. Going up, Rotha came into the kitchen proper. A fire was burning in the wide chimney, and an old-fashioned dresser opposite held dishes and tins. Between dresser and fire stood a woman, regarding Rotha as she came in with a consideration which was more curious than gracious. Rotha on her part looked eagerly at her. She was a tall woman, very well formed; not very neatly dressed, for her sleeves were worn at the elbows, and a strip torn from her skirt and not torn off, dangled on the floor. The dress was of some dark stuff, too old to be of any particular colour. But what struck Rotha immediately was, that the woman was not a white woman. Very light she was, undoubtedly, and of a clear good colour, but she had not the fair tint of the white races. Red shewed in her cheeks, through the pale olive of them; and her hair, black and crinkly, was not crisp but long, and smoothly combed over her temples. She was a very handsome woman; a fact which Rotha did not perceive at first, owing to a dark scowl which drew her eyebrows together, and under which her eyes looked forth fiery and ominous. They fixed the new-comer with a steady stare of what seemed displeasure. "Good morning!" said Rotha. "Are you Mrs. Purcell?" "Who wants Mrs. Purcell?" was the gruff answer. "I was told that Mrs. Purcell is the name of the person who lives here?" "There's two folks lives here." "Yes," said Rotha, "I understood so. You and your husband work for Mrs. Busby, do you not?" "No," said the woman decidedly. "Us don't work for nobody. Us works for our ownselves;"—with an accent on the word "own." "This is Mrs. Busby's house?" "Yes, this is her house, I reckon." "And she pays you for taking care of it." "Who told you she does?" "Nobody told me; but I supposed it, of course." "She don't pay nothin'. Us pays her; that's how it is. Us pays her, for all us has; the land and the house and all." "I am Mrs. Busby's niece. Did she send you any word about me?" "Sent Joseph word—" said the woman mutteringly. "He said as some one was comin'. I suppose it's you. I mean, Mr. Purcell." "Then you expected me. Did Mrs. Busby tell you what you were to do with me?" "I didn't read the letter," said the woman, turning now from her examination of Rotha to take up her work, which had been washing up her breakfast dishes. "Joseph didn't tell me nothin'." "I suppose you know where to put me," said Rotha, getting a little out of patience. "I shall want a room. Where is it to be?" "I don' know," said Mrs. Purcell, whose fingers were flying among her pots and dishes in a way that shewed laziness was no part of her character. "There aint no room but at the top o' the house. Joseph and me has the only room that's down stairs. I s'pose you wouldn't like one o' the parlours. The rest is all at the top." "Can I go to the parlour in the mean time, till my room is ready?—if it is not ready." "It aint ready. I never heerd you was comin', till last night. How was I to have the room ready? and I don' know which room it's to be." "Then can I go to the parlour? where is it?" "It's all the next floor. There's nothin' but parlours. You can go there if you like; but they aint been opened in a year. I never was in 'em but once or twice since I lived here." Rotha was in despair. She set her bag on one chair and placed herself on another, and waited. This was far worse even than her fears. O if she had but a little money, to buy this woman's civility! perhaps it could be bought. But she was thrown from one dependence to another; and now she was come to depend on this common person. She did not know what more to say; she could not do anything to propitiate her. She waited. "Have you had any breakfast?" said Mrs. Purcell, after some ten minutes had passed with no sound but that of her cups and plates taken up and set down. This went on briskly; Mrs. Purcell seemed to be an energetic worker. "Yes, thank you. I took breakfast at the hotel in Tanfield." "I didn't know but I had to cook breakfast all over again." "I will not give you any more trouble than I can help—if you will only give me a room by and by." "There's nothin' fur I to give—you can pick and choose in the whole house. Us has only these rooms down here; there's the whole big barn of a house overhead. Folks meant it to be a grand house, I s'pose; it's big enough; but I don't want no more of it than I can take care of." "You can take care of my room, I suppose?" said Rotha. The woman gave a kind of grunt, which was neither assent nor denial, but rather expressed her estimation of the proposal. She went on silently and rapidly with her kitchen work; putting up her dishes, brushing the floor, making up the fire, putting on a pot or two. Rotha watched and waited in silence also, trying to be patient. Finally Mrs. Purcell took down a key, and addressing herself to Rotha, said, "Now I'm ready. If you like to come, you can see what there is." She unlocked a door and led the way up a low flight of steps. At the top of them another door let them out upon a wide hall. The hall ran from one side of the house to the other. With doors thrown open to let in the air and light this might have been a very pleasant place; now however it was dark and dank and chilly, with that dismal closeness and rawness of atmosphere which is always found in a house long shut up. Doors on the one hand and on the other hand opened into it, and at the end where the two women had entered it, ran up a wide easy staircase. "Will you go higher?" said Mrs. Purcell; "or will you have a room here?" Rotha opened one of the doors. Light coming scantily in through chinks in the shutters revealed dimly a very large, very lofty apartment, furnished as a drawing-room. She opened another door; it gave a repetition of the same thing, only the colour of the hangings and upholsteries seemed to be different. A third, and a fourth; they were all alike; large, stately rooms, fit to hold a great deal of company, or to accommodate an exceedingly numerous family with sitting and dining and receiving rooms. The four saloons took up the entire floor. "There is no bedroom here," said Rotha. "The folks that lived here didn't make no 'count o' sleepin', I guess. They put all the house into their parlours. I suppose the days was longer than the nights, when they was alive." "But there must be bedrooms somewhere?" "You can go up and see. Us wouldn't sleep up there for nothin'. Us could ha' took what we liked when us come; but I said to Mr. Purcell,—I said,—I wasn't goin' to break my back runnin' up and down stairs; and if he wanted to live up there, he had got to live without I. So us fixed up a little room down near the kitchen. These rooms is awful hot in summer, too. I can dry fruit in 'em as good as in an oven." They had reached the top story of the house by this time, after climbing a long flight of stairs. Here there were a greater number of rooms, and indeed furnished as bedrooms; but they were low, and immediately under the roof. The air was less dank than in the first story, but excessively close. "Is this all the choice I have?" Rotha asked. "Unless us was to give you our room." "But nobody else sleeps in all this part of the house!" "No," said Mrs. Purcell, with an action that answered to a Frenchman's shrug of the shoulders; "you can have 'em all, and sleep in 'em all, one after the other, if you like. There's nobody to object." "But suppose I wanted something in the night?" said Rotha, who did not in the least relish this liberty. "You'd have to holler pretty loud, if you wanted I to do anything for you. I guess you'll have to learn to wait on yourself." "O it isn't that," said Rotha; "I can wait on myself; but if I wanted— something I couldn't do for myself—if I was frightened—" "What's to frighten you?" "I do not know—" "If you got frightened, all you'd have to do would be to take your little feet in your hand and run down to we; that's all you could do." Rotha looked somewhat dismayed. "I could ha' told you, it wasn't a very pleasant place you was a comin' to," Mrs. Purcell went on. "Sick o' your bargain, aint ye?" "What bargain?" "I don' know! Which o' these here rooms will you take? You've seen the whole now." Rotha was very unwilling to make choice at all up there. Yet a thought of one of those great echoing drawing rooms was dismissed as soon as it came. At last she fixed upon a room near the head of the stairs; a corner room, with outlook in two directions; flung open the windows to let the air and the light come, in; and locked up her bag in a closet. "There aint nobody to meddle with your things," observed Mrs. Purcell, noticing this action,—"without it's me; and I've got enough to do down stairs. There's nothin' worse than rats in the house." "Have you some sheets and towels for me?" said Rotha. "And can you give me some water by and by?" "I've got no sheets and towels but them as us uses," replied Mrs. Purcell. "Mrs Busby haint said nothin' about no sheets and towels. Those us has belongs to we. They aint like what rich folks has." "I have brought none with me, of course. Mrs. Busby will pay you for the use of them, I have no doubt." "Mrs. Busby don't pay for nothin'," said the woman. "Will you bring me some water?" "I'll give you a pail, and you can fetch some for your own self. I can't go up and down them stairs. It gives me a pain in my back. I'll let you have some o' us's sheets, if you like." "If you please," said Rotha. "But I can't come up with 'em. I'd break in two if I went up and down there a few times. I'll let you have 'em whenever you like to come after 'em." And therewith Mrs. Purcell vanished, and her feet could be heard descending the long stair. I think in all her life Rotha had never felt much more desolate than she felt just then. She let herself drop on a chair and buried her face in her hands. Things were worse, a hundred fold, than ever she could have imagined them. She was of rather a nervous temperament; and the idea of being lodged up there at the top of that great, empty, echoing house, with nobody within call, and neither help nor sympathy to be had if she wanted either, absolutely appalled her. True, no danger was to be apprehended; not real danger; but that consideration did not quiet fancy nor banish fear; and if fear possessed her, what sort of consolation was it that there was no cause? The fear was there, all the same; and Rotha thought of the yet distant shades of night with absolute terror. After giving way to this feeling for a little while, she began to fight against it. She raised her head from her hands, and went and sat down by the open window. Soft, sweet, balmy air was coming in gently, changing the inner condition of the room by degrees; Rotha put her head half out, to get it unmixed. It was May, May in the country; and the air was bringing May tokens with it, of unseen sweetness. There were lilies of the valley blooming somewhere, and daffodils; and there was the smell of box, and spice from the fir trees, and fragrance from the young leaf of oaks and maples and birches and beeches. There was a wild scent from not distant woods, given out from mosses and wild flowers and turf, and the freshness of the upturned soil from ploughed fields. It was May, and May whispering that June was near. The whisper was so unspeakably sweet that it stole into Rotha's heart and breathed upon its disturbance, almost breathing it away. For June means life and love and happiness. "Everything is happy now; Everything is upward striving; 'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true, As for grass to be green or skies to be blue; 'Tis the natural way of living!" June was coming, and May was here; more placid and more pensive, but hardly less fair; that is, in her good moods; and Rotha insensibly grew comforted. This delight would remain, whatever she had or had not within the house; there was all out of doors, and the Spring! and Rotha's heart made a great bound to meet it. She could live out of doors a great deal; and in the house—well, she would make the best of things. She drew in her head to take a survey. Yes, it was a snug room enough, once in nice order; and the first thing to do, she decided, was to put it in nice order. She must do it herself. O for one of those calicos, lying at present cut and basted in her trunk. She must make them up as fast as possible. With the feeling of a good deal of business on hand, Rotha's spirits rose. She went down to the kitchen again, and begged the loan of a big apron. Mrs. Purcell silently gave it. Then Rotha desired brushes and a broom and dusters, and soap and water and towels. One after another Mrs. Purcell placed these articles, such as she had, at her disposal. "My trunk is in the road by the front steps," she remarked. "Can you get it taken up for me?" "A trunk?" said Mrs. Purcell, knitting her brows again into the scowl which had greeted Rotha at the first. A very black scowl the latter thought it. "Yes, my trunk. It's a little one. Not much for anybody to carry." "Whatever did you want of a trunk?" "Why, to hold my things," said Rotha quietly. "Are you goin' to stay all summer?" "I hope not; but I do not know how long. My aunt is going on a journey; I must stay till she comes back." "Why didn't she let you go along?" "I suppose it was not convenient." A grunt from Mrs. Purcell. "Rich folks only thinks what's convenient for their own selves!" "But she will pay you for your trouble." "She'll pay Mr. Purcell, if she pays anybody. It don't come into my pocket, and the trouble don't go into his'n." "I shall not be much trouble." "Where is you goin' to eat? You won't want to eat along o' we?" No, certainly, that was what Rotha did not want. She made no reply. "Mis' Busby had ought to send folks to take care o' her company, when she sends company. I haint got no time. And us hasn't got no place. There's no place but us's kitchen—will you like to eat here? I can't go and tote things up to one o' them big parlours." "Do the best you can for me," said Rotha. "I will try and be content." And staying no further parley, which she felt just then unable to bear, she gathered together her brushes and dusters and climbed up the long stairs again. But it was sweet when she got to her room under the roof. The May air had filled the room by this time; the May sunshine was streaming in; the scents and sounds of the spring were all around; and they brought with them inevitably a little bit of hope and cheer into Rotha's heart. Without stopping to let herself think, she set about putting the place in order; brushed and dusted everything; washed up the furniture of the washstand; made up the bed, and hung towels on the rack. Then she drew an old easy chair to a convenient place by one of the windows; put a small table before it; got out and arranged in order her writing materials, her Bible and Scripture Treasury; put her bonnet and wrappings away in a closet; and at last sat down to consider the situation. She had got a corner of comfort up there, private to herself. The room was large and bright; one window looked out into the top of a great tulip tree, the other commanded a bit of meadow near the house, and through the branches and over the summits of firs and larches near at hand and apple trees further off, looked along a distant stretch of level country. No extended view, and nothing remarkable; but sweet, peaceful nature, green turf, and leafy tree growths; with the smell of fresh vegetation and the spiciness of the resiny evergreens, and the delicious song and chipper and warble of insects and birds. It all breathed a breath of content into Rotha's heart. But then, she was up here alone at the top of the house; there was all that wilderness of empty rooms between her and the rest of the social world; and at the end of it, what? Mrs. Purcell and her kitchen; and doubtless, Mr. Purcell. And what was Rotha to do, in the midst of such surroundings? The girl grew almost desperate by the time she had followed this train of thought a little way. It seemed to her that her pleasant room was a prison and Mr. and Mrs. Purcell her jailers; and her term of confinement one of unknown duration. If she had only a little money, then she would not be so utterly helpless and dependent; even money to buy Mrs. Purcell's civility and good-will; or if she had a little more than that, she might get away. Without any money, she was simply a prisoner, and at the mercy of her jailers. O what had become of her friends! Where was Mr. Southwode, and how could he have forgotten her? and how was it that Mrs. Mowbray had been taken from her just now, just at this point when she was needed so dreadfully? Rotha could have made all right with a few minutes' talk to Mrs. Mowbray; to write and state her grievances, she justly felt, was a different thing, not so easy nor so manifestly proper. She did not like to do what would be in effect asking Mrs. Mowbray to send for her and keep her during her aunt's absence. No, it was impossible to do that. Rotha could not Better bear anything. But then,—here she was with no help! It all ended in some bitter weeping. Rotha was too young yet not to find tears a relief. She cried herself tired; and then found she was very much in need of sleep. She gave herself up to it, and to forgetfulness. <h4 id="id04126" style="margin-top: 2em">CHAPTER XXIV.</h4> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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