The Letter of Credit

troubles at home.

  Those were threefold, to take them in detail. She wore still the old dress; she was consequently still kept up stairs; and it followed also of course that Mr. Digby came and went and she had no sight of him. It happened thus.

  Several days he allowed to pass without calling again. Not that he forgot Rotha, or was careless about her; but he partly knew his adversary and judged this course wise, for Rotha's sake. His first visit had been on Tuesday evening; he let a week go by, and then he went again. Mrs. Busby was engaged with other visitors; he had to post-pone the inquiries he wished to make. Meanwhile Antoinette attacked him.

  "Mr. Southwode,--now it is a nice evening, and you promised;--will you take me to the Minstrels?"

  "I always keep my promises."

  "Then shall we go?" with great animation.

  "Did I say I would go to-night?"

  "No; but to-night is a good time; as good as any. Ah, Mr. Southwode! let us go. You'll never take me, if you do not to-night."

  "What would Mrs. Busby say?"

  "O she'd say yes. Of course she'd say yes. Mamma always says yes when I ask her things. Mamma! I say, mamma! listen to me one moment; may I go with Mr. Southwode?"

  One moment Mrs. Busby turned her head from the friend with whom she was talking, looked at her daughter, and said, "Yes"; then turned again and went on with what she was saying. Antoinette jumped up.

  "And bring your cousin too," said Mr. Southwode as she was flying off. Antoinette stopped.

  "Rotha? she can't go."

  "Why can she not go?"

  "She has got nothing ready to wear out yet. Mamma hasn't had time to get the things and have 'em made. She couldn't go."

  "She might wear what she wore when I brought her here," Mr. Digby suggested. Antoinette shook her head.

  "O no! Mamma wouldn't let her go out so. She _couldn't_, now that she is under her care, you know. Her things are not fit at all."

  "Will you have the kindness to send word to your cousin that I should like to see her for a few minutes?"

  "O she can't come down?"

  "Why not?"

  "O she's in no condition. Mamma--mamma! Mr. Southwode wants to see Rotha."

  "I am very sorry!" said Mrs. Busby smoothly and calmly, turning again from the discourse she was carrying on,--"I have sent her to bed with a tumbler of hot lemonade."

  "What is the matter?"

  "A slight cold--nothing troublesome, I hope; but I thought best to take it in time. I do not want her studies to be interrupted."

  Mr. Southwode was powerless against this announcement, and thought his own thoughts, till Mrs. Busby drew him into the discussion which just then engaged her. Upon this busy talk presently came Antoinette, hatted and cloaked, and drawing on her gloves. Stood and waited.

  "Mr. Southwode--I am ready," she said, as he did not attend to her.

  "For the Minstrels?" said he, with that very unconcerned manner of his. "But, Miss Antoinette, would not your cousin like to go?"

  "She _can't_, you know. Where are your ears, Mr. Southwode? Mamma explained to you that she was in bed."

  "Then do you not agree with me, that it would be the kindest thing to defer our own pleasure until she can share it?"

  Antoinette flushed and coloured, and tears of disappointment came into her eyes. A little tinge rose in Mrs. Busby's cheeks too.

  "Go and take your cloak off," she said coldly. "And Antoinette, you had better see that your lessons for to-morrow morning are all ready."

  Mr. Southwode thereupon took his departure. If he had known what eyes and ears were strained to get knowledge of him at that moment, I think he would have stood his ground and taken some very decided measures. But he could not see from the lighted hall below up into the darkness of the third story, even' if it could have occurred to him to try. There stood however a white figure, leaning over the balusters, and very well aware whose steps were going through the hall and out at the front door. Poor Rotha had obeyed orders and undressed and gone to bed, though she insisted her throat was only a very little irritated; and neither the one fact nor the other had prevented her from jumping tip to listen when the door bell rang, and again when steps she knew came out from the parlour. Again he had been here, and again she had missed him. Of course he could do nothing when told that she was in bed with a cold. Rotha went back into her room and stood trembling, not with a chill, though the night was cold enough, but with a fever of rage and desperation. She opened the window and poured out the lemonade which she had not touched; she shut the window and wrung her hands. She seemed to be in a net, in a cage, in a prison; and the walls of her prison were so invisible that she could not get at them to burst them. She would write to Mr. Digby, only she did not know his address. Would he not write to her, perhaps? Rotha Was in a kind of fury of impatience and indignation; this thought served to give her a little stay to hold by.

  And a letter did come for her the very next evening; and Rotha's eyes never saw it, nor did her ears hear of it.

  Neither did her new dresses come to light; and evening after evening her condition was not changed. She was prisoner up stairs with her books and studies, which did not occupy her; and hour after hour Rotha stood in the hall and listened, or sat watching. She could not hear Mr. Digby's voice again. She wondered what had power to detain him. With craving anxiety and the strain of hope and fear, Rotha's cheek began to grow pale. It was getting at last beyond endurance. She went through her school duties mechanically, thinking of something else, yet doing all that was required of her; for, as I said, it was ground that she had gone over already. She queried with herself whether Mr. Southwode might not come even to the school to seek her; it seemed so impossible that she should be utterly kept from the sight of him. All this while Rotha never spoke his name before her aunt or cousin; never asked a question about him or his visits. By what subtle instinct it is hard to tell, she knew the atmosphere of the house was not favourable to the transmission of those particular sounds.

  One thing, one day, had made a break in her gloomy thoughts. She was in her class, in the special room appropriated to that class, busy as usual; when the door opened and a lady came in whom Rotha had not fairly seen before, yet whom she at once recognized for what she was, the head of the establishment. Rotha's eyes were fascinated. It was a tall figure, very stately and dignified as well as graceful; handsomely and carefully dressed; but Rotha took in that fact without knowing what the lady wore, she was so engrossed with the face and manner of this vision. The manner was at once gracious and commanding; courteous exceedingly, while the air of decision and the tone of authority were well marked. But the face! It was wonderfully lovely; with fair features and kind eyes; the head sat well upon the shoulders, and the hair was arranged with very rare grace around the delicate head. So elegant a head one very rarely sees, as was Mrs. Mowbray's, although the dressing of the hair was as simple as possible. The hair was merely twisted up in a loose knot or coil at the back; the effect was what not one in a thousand can reach with all the arts of the hair-dresser. This lovely apparition paused a minute or two before Miss Blodgett, while some matter of business was discussed; then the observant eyes came to the young stranger in the class, and a few steps brought them close up to her.

  "This is Miss Carpenter, isn't it?--yes. How do you do, my dear." She took Rotha's hand kindly. "How is your aunt, Mrs. Busby?"

  Rotha answered. Perhaps those watchful eyes saw that there was no pleasure in the answer.

  "Your cousin--she is in Miss Graham's class, is she not?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Well, I hope you have made some friends here. Miss Doolittle, won't you be helpful to Miss Carpenter if you can? she is a stranger among us.--Good morning, young ladies!"

  The lady swept away from the room; but all that day there hovered in Rotha's thoughts a vision of beauty and grace and dignity, an accent of kindness, a manner of love and authority, which utterly fascinated and wholly captivated h
er. It was quite a sweetener of that day's dry work. She looked to see the vision come again the next day, and the next; in vain; but Rotha now knew the voice; and not a word was let fall from those lips, in reading or prayer, at the school opening now, that she did not listen to.

  Days went on. At last one day Mrs. Busby said it was no use to wait any longer for the mantua-makers; Rotha might as well come down and have her dinner with the family. She could not stay in the drawing room of course, until she was decently dressed; but she might as well come to dinner. Rotha could not understand why so much could not have been granted from the first; there was nobody at the dinner table but her aunt and cousin and Mr. Busby. Mr. Busby was a very