"Well--" said Mrs. Busby; "it would take some time, certainly, to fit Antoinette's to you; perhaps that is the best way; and it is only for a day or two; it wouldn't matter much. Well, then you may take these things away, Rotha, and put them by." "Where?" said Rotha. "In my trunk?" "Yes, for the present That will do." Rotha carried her muslins up stairs again, and had some ado not to sit down and cry. But she would not, and fought the weakness successfully down, appearing before her aunt again in a few minutes with an imperturbable exterior. Which she was able to maintain about ten minutes. Antoinette was dressing for dinner; dressing in front of her mother's fire; making herself rather striking in a blue silk, over which her long curling fair hair tumbled as over a pretty foil. Mrs. Busby also was putting herself in order. Rotha looked on. Presently the dinner bell rang. "I'll send you up your dinner, Rotha," Mrs. Busby said, turning to her niece. "Till we get some gowns made for you, you must keep in hiding. I'll send it up to you here, hot and nice." Rotha said not one word, but two flames shot into her cheeks, and from her dark eyes flared two such lightnings, that Mrs. Busby absolutely shrank back, and did not meet those eyes again while she remained in the room. But in that one moment aunt and niece had taken their position towards each other, and what is more, recognized it. "I shall have my hands full with that girl," Mrs. Busby muttered as she went down stairs. "Did you see how she looked at me?" "I didn't know she could look so," replied Antoinette. "Isn't she a regular spitfire?" "I shall know how to manage her," Mrs. Busby said, with her mouth set. "She is not at all like her mother." Rotha, left in the dressing room, sat down and laid her head on her arms on the table. Wrath and indignation were boiling within her. The girl dimly felt more than her reason could as yet grasp; somewhat sinister which ran through all her aunt's manner towards her and had undoubtedly called forth this last regulation. What did it mean? So she could go to school in her old dress and be seen by a hundred strange eyes, but might not sit at the table with her aunt's family and take her dinner in their company! And this was the very dress in which she had gone to the Park with Mr. Digby more than once. _He_ had not minded it. And here there was nobody that had not seen it already, except Mr. Busby.