"She is as kind as it is possible to be. She is kinder than ever you can think. She is as generous as a horn of plenty, and there is not a small thread in all her composition. She knows how to govern, and she will govern you, if you stay in her house; and she will keep her promises, as you will find to your cost if you break her laws; but she is good, and sweet, and bountiful, as a goddess of mercy. And whoever says anything else of her, you may be sure is not worthy of her Kindness; and speaks not true, but meanly, falsely, ungratefully, and mischievously!" Rotha stood and blazed at them; and incensed and resentful as they were, the others were afraid now to say anything; for Mrs. Mowbray herself had come into the centre room, and other ears were near, which they did not wish to arouse. It passed for the time; but the next day another of her companions attacked Rotha on the subject. "You made Miss Dunstable awfully angry at you last evening, Rotha." "I suppose so." "What did you do it for?" "Because she was telling a pack of lies!" said Rotha. "I'm not going to sit by and hear anybody talk so of Mrs. Mowbray. And you ought not; and nobody ought." "Miss Dunstable will hate you, I can tell you. She'll be your enemy after this." "That is nothing to me." "Yes, it's all very well to say that, but you won't think so when you come to find out. She belongs to a very rich family, and she is worth having for a friend." "A girl like that?" cried Rotha. "A low spirited, false girl? Worth having for a friend? Not to anybody who is worth anything herself." "But she is ever so rich." "What's that to me? Do you think I am going to sit by and hear Mrs. Mowbray slandered, or anybody else, because the story teller has plenty of money? What is her money to me?" "Well, I don't know," said the other deprecatingly. "It puts things in her power. Her family is one of the best in New York." "Then the other members of it are much superior to this one!--that's all I have got to say." "But Rotha, she can hurt you." "How?" "She can make the other girls treat you ill." "I can bear as much as that for Mrs. Mowbray, I guess." "What makes you like her so much?" Rotha's eyes gave a wondering, very expressive, glance at her interlocutor. "Because she is so unspeakably good, and beautiful, and generous. She is a kind of a queen!" "She likes to rule." "She _has_ to rule. What sort of a place would the house be, if she did not rule?" "But, Julia Dunstable could do you good, if she liked." "Could she? How?" said Rotha drily. "O she could put pleasant things in your way. She gave some of us a lovely invitation to a Christmas party; we had a royal time; and she asks the girls every now and then." "And you would have me be a traitor for the sake of an invitation? Bell Savage, I do not want invitations from such people." "La, Rotha, the world is full of such people; you cannot pick and choose."