andmother," replied Rosanna, "only that I am very sorry that you
are angry with me, and I hope some day you will be sorry too that you
did not love me when I was here to love."

"Do you think of leaving?" said Mrs. Horton sneeringly. "You had better
tell me where you are going so I can send your clothes. I believe that
is the way they do with the sort of people you have been making friends
with."

Rosanna did not reply:

"Let me catch you leaving this room!" said Mrs. Horton. She went out and
closed the door. Rosanna nodded her head. Her mind was made up. She
crossed to the dainty dresser, and switching on the lights did something
she had never done in her life. Rosanna was not vain in the least, but
if you could have seen her then, turning this way and that, lifting her
long, heavy curls, wadding them on top of her head, or trying them in a
long braid, you would have said that she seemed to be a very vain little
girl indeed.

She appeared satisfied at last with what she saw in the glass, and
noticed that it was growing quite dark.

She went over to her little bed, and knelt.

"Please, dear Lord," she whispered, "I don't want to do anything wrong.
Please help me because I am so afraid. And now that Minnie is gone and
Helen, please give me somebody to love me. Amen."

She felt better after that, and sat down by the window. It was almost
dark....

When Mrs. Horton left Rosanna, she went down to the big, dim library
and, seating herself at her desk, commenced to write letters. She found
it difficult to collect her thoughts and there was a bad feeling in her
heart, as though she was wrong, as though she was doing something
unwise, unkind, and perhaps really wicked. But she thrust it out of her
thoughts because she didn't think that she ever _could_ do anything
really wrong.

Something pressed hard on her heart, and she grew very restless. Some
impulse led her to go to the telephone and call Mrs. Hargrave on the
long distance line.

Mrs. Hargrave, who was very much bored by Cousin Hendy, was delighted to
hear her old friend's voice. She did not let Mrs. Horton get a word in
edgewise for the first two minutes. She seemed to think Mrs. Horton
didn't care how much that telephone call was going to cost. She asked
how she was, and how Robert was, and had he found his lost friend, and
she certainly hoped he had, and when had they returned, and oh, wasn't
it too bad Robert had been unable to come with his mother?

Th