"'Spect she likes grand doings. Does she live very fine, down to New York?" "How do you mean?" "All the folks does, in the City o' Pride," remarked Mrs. Purcell. "Do Mis' Busby?" persisted her husband. "Be they all highflyers, to her house?" "I do not know what you mean by 'highflyers.'" "Folks that wears heels to their shoes," put in Mrs. Purcell. "They can't set foot to the ground, like common folks. And they puts their hair up in a bunch on the top." "Anybody can do that," said Mr. Purcell, sticking his knife in the butter to detach a portion of it. "Anybody can't, Joe! that's where you're out. It takes one o' them highflyers. And then they thinks, when their heels and their heads is all right, they've got up above the rest of we." "You can put your hair any way you've a mind to," returned her husband. "There can't none of 'em get ahead o' you there." Both parties glanced at Rotha. Her long hair was twisted up in a loose knot on the top of her head; very becoming and very graceful; for without being in the least disorderly it was careless, and without being in the least complicated or artificial it was inimitable, by one not initiated. Husband and wife looked at her, looked at each other, and laughed. "Mis' Busby writ me about you," said Joe, slightly changing the subject. "She said, you was one o' her family." "She is my aunt." "She is! I didn't know Mis' Busby never had no brother, nor sister', nor nothin'." "She had a sister once." "She aint livin' then. And you live with Mis' Busby?" "Yes." "Well, 'taint none o' my business, but Mis' Busby didn't say, and I didn't know what to think. She said you was comin', but she didn't say how long you was goin' to stay; and we'd like to know that, Prissy and me; 'cause o' course it makes a difference." "In what?" said Rotha, growing desperate. "Well, in our feelin's," said Mr. Purcell, inclining his head in a suave manner, indicating his good disposition. "You see, we don' know how to take care of you, 'thout we knowed if it was to be for a week, or a month, or that. Mis' Busby only said you was comin'; and she didn't say why nor whether." "I do not know," said Rotha. "You must manage as well as you can without knowing; for I cannot tell you." "Very good!" said Mr. Purcell, inclining his head blandly again; "then that's one point. You don' know yourself." "No." "That means she aint a goin' in a hurry," said Mrs. Purcell. "There's her trunk, Joe, that you've got to tote up stairs." "I'll do that," said Joe rising; "if it aint bigger 'n I be. Where is it at?" "Settin' out in the road." "And where's it goin'?" "Up to her room. She'll shew you." Rotha mounted the stairs again, preceding Joe and her trunk, and feeling more utterly desolate than it is easy to describe. Shut up here, at the top of this great empty house, and with these associates! Her heart almost failed her.