The Letter of Credit

things."

  "H'm! What induced her then to go to such expense for a girl she never saw before?"

  "I suppose she was sorry for me," said Rotha, with her heart swelling.

  "Sorry for you! May I ask, why?"

  "You know how I was dressed, aunt Serena; and you know how the other girls in school dress."

  "I know a great many of them have foolish mothers, who make themselves ridiculous by the way they let their children appear. It is a training of vanity. I should not have thought Mrs. Mowbray would lend herself to such nonsense."

  "But you do not think Antoinette has a foolish mother?" Rotha could not help saying. Mrs. Busby's daughter was quite as much dressed as the other girls. That she ought not to have made that speech, Rotha knew; but she made it. So much satisfaction she must have. It remained however completely ignored.

  "Who made your dress?" Mrs. Busby went on.

  "A dress-maker. One of the ladies went with me to have it cut."

  "What did you do Christmas?" Antoinette inquired. In reply to which, Rotha gave an account of her visit to the Old Coloured Home.

  "Just like Mrs. Mowbray!" was Mrs. Busby's comment. "She has no discretion."

  "Why do you say that, aunt Serena?"

  "Such an expenditure of money for nothing. What good would a little tea and a little tobacco do those people? It would not last more than a week or two; and then they are just where they were before."

  "But it did not cost so very much," objected Rotha.

  "Have you reckoned it up? Fifty or sixty half-pounds of tea, fifty or sixty pounds of sugar,--why, the sugar alone would be five or six dollars; and the tobacco, and the carriage hire; and I don't know what beside. All for nothing. That woman does not know what to do with money."

  "But is it not something, to make so many poor people happy, if even only for a little while?"

  "It would be a great deal better to give them something to do them good; a flannel petticoat, now, or a pair of warm socks. That would last. Or putting the money in the funds of the Institution, where it would go to their daily needs. I always think of that."

  "_Would_ it go to their daily needs? Some ladies got a cow for them once; and it just gave the matron cream for her tea, and they got no good of it."

  "I don't believe that at all!" exclaimed Mrs. Busby. "I know the matron; Mrs. Bothers; I know her, for I recommended her myself. I have no idea she would be guilty of any such impropriety. It is just the gossip in the house, that Mrs. Mowbray has taken up in her haste and swallowed."

  Rotha tried to hold her tongue. It was hard.

  "Did Mrs. Mowbray give _you_ anything Christmas?" Antoinette asked, pushing her inquiries. Rotha hesitated, but could find no way to answer without admitting the affirmative.

  "What?" was the immediate next question; and even Mrs. Busby looked with ill-pleased eyes to hear Rotha's next words. It seemed like making her precious things common, to tell of them to these unkind ears. Yet there was no help for it.

  "She gave me a travelling hand-bag."

  "What sort?"

  "Russia leather."

  "There, mamma!" Antoinette exclaimed. "Isn't that Mrs. Mowbray all over? When a morocco one, or a canvas one, would have done just as well."

  "As I said," returned Mrs. Busby. "Mrs. Mowbray does not know what to do with money. When are you going travelling, Rotha?"

  "I do not know. Some time in my life, I suppose."

  "What a ridiculous thing to give her!" pursued Antoinette.

  "Yes, I think so," her mother echoed. "Do not let yourself be deluded, Rotha, by presents of travelling bags or anything else. Your future life is not likely to be spent in pleasuring. What I can do for you in the way of giving you an education, will be all I can do; then you will have to make a living and a home for, yourself; and the easiest way you can do it will be by teaching. I shall tell Mrs. Mowbray to educate you for some post in which perhaps she can put you by and by; she or somebody else. So pack up your expectations; you will not need to do much of other sorts of packing."

  "You forget there is another person to be consulted, aunt Serena."

  "What other person?" said Mrs. Busby raising her head and fixing her observant eyes upon Rotha.

  "Mr. Southwode."

  "Mr. Southwode!" repeated the lady coldly. "I am ignorant what a stranger like him has to say about our family affairs."

  "He is not a stranger," said Rotha hotly. "He is the person I know best in the world, and love best. He is the person to whom I belong; that mother left me to; and it is for him, not for you, to say what I shall do, or what I shall be."

  Imprudent Rotha! But passion is always imprudent.

  "Very improper language!" said Mrs. Busby coldly. "When a young lady speaks so of a young gentleman, what are we to think?"

  "I am not a young lady," said Rotha; "and he is not a young gentleman; at least, not very young; and you may think the truth, which is what I say."

  "Do you mean that you have arranged to marry Mr. Southwode?" said the lady, fixing her keen little eyes upon Rotha's face.

  Rotha's face flamed, with mingled indignation and shame; she deigned no answer.

  "She doesn't speak, mamma," said Antoinette mischievously. "You may depend, that's the plan. Rotha and Mr. Southwode! I declare, that's too good! So that's the arrangement!"

  "I am so ashamed that I cannot speak to you," said Rotha in her passion and humiliation. "How can you say such wicked things! I wish Mr. Southwode was here to give you a proper answer."

  "What, you think he would take your part?" said her aunt.

  "He always did. He would now. He will yet, aunt Serena."

  "That is enough!" said Mrs. Busby, becoming excited a little on her part. "Hush, Antoinette; I will have no more of this very unedifying conversation. But you, Rotha, may as well know that you will never see Mr. Southwode again. He is engaged in England with the affairs of his father's business; he will probably soon marry; and then there is no chance whatever that he will ever return to America. So you had best consider whether it is worth while to offend the friends you have left, for the sake of one who is nothing to you any more."

  "I know Mr. Southwode better than that," was Rotha's answer. But the girl's face was purple with honest shame.

  "You expect he will come back and make you his wife?" said Mrs. Busby scornfully.

  "I expect he will come back and take care of me. You might as well talk of his making that pussy cat his wife. I am just a poor girl, and no more. But he will take care of me. I know he will, if I have to wait ten years first."

  "How old are you now?"

  "Sixteen, almost."

  "Then in ten years you will be twenty six. My dear, there is only one way in which Mr. Southwode could take care of you then; he must make you his wife, or leave it to somebody else to take care of you. He knows that as well as I do; and so he put you in my hands. Now let us make an end of this disgraceful scene. Before ten years are past, you will probably be the wife of somebody else. All this talk is very foolish."

  Rotha thought it _was_, but also thought the fault was not in her part of it. She sat glowing with confusion; she felt as if the blood would verily start through her skin; and angry in proportion. Still she was silent, though Antoinette laughed.

  "What a farce, mamma! To think of Rotha being in love with Mr. Southwode!"

  "Hold your tongue, Nettie."

  "To love, and to be in love, are two things," said Rotha hotly. "I do not know what being in love means; I _do_ know the other."

  "O mamma!--she doesn't know what it means!"

  "I told you to be quiet, Antoinette."

  "I didn't hear it, mamma. But I think you might reprove Rotha for saying what is not true."

  "That is what I never do," said Rotha.

  Mrs. Busby here interfered, and ordered Rotha to go up stairs to her room and stay there till she could command herself. Rotha went.

  "Mamma," said Antoinette
then, "I do believe it is earnest about her and Mr. Southwode. In her mind, I mean. Did you see how she coloured?"

  "I should not be at all surprised," said, Mrs. Busby.

  "When is he coming back, mamma?"

  "I cannot say. I think he does not know himself. He writes that he is very busy at present."

  "But he will come back, you think?"

  "He says so. Antoinette, say nothing--not a word more--about him to Rotha. She has got her head turned, and it is best she