The Letter of Credit

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