“Yes,” Henrietta said, fingering it again, “if you promise you never think anything horrid about my mother.” “The worst I have ever thought of her,” Rose said lightly, “is envying her for her daughter.” She saw Henrietta’s mouth open inelegantly. “Me? Oh, but you’re not old enough.” “I feel very old sometimes.” “I thought you were when I first saw you,” Henrietta said, looking in the glass and swaying her body to make the diamonds glitter, “but now I know you never will be, because it’s only ugly people who get old. When your hair is white you’ll be like a queen. Now you’re a princess, though Mrs. Sales says you’re a witch. Oh, I didn’t mean to tell you that. It was a long time ago. She is never disagreeable now. I’m going to see her again to-morrow.” “I wish you would go in the morning, Henrietta. The afternoons get dark so soon and the road is lonely.” “She doesn’t like visitors in the morning,” Henrietta said. “I love this necklace. Could I wear it to the dance?” “It depends on the dress. If you are really to look like a marigold you must wear no ornaments. If you had yellow tulle—” And Rose took pencil and paper and made a rough design, talking with enthusiasm meanwhile, for like all the Malletts, she loved clothes. The next day Caroline had to stay in bed. She had been feverish all night and Sophia appeared in Rose’s bedroom early in the morning, her great plait of hair swinging free, her face yellow with anxiety and sleeplessness and lack of powder, to inform her stepsister that dear Caroline was very ill: they must have the doctor directly after breakfast. Sophia was afraid Caroline was going to die. She had groaned in the night when she thought Sophia was asleep. “I deceived her,” Sophia said. “I hope it wasn’t wrong, but I knew she would be easier if she thought I slept. Now she says there is nothing the matter with her and she wants to get up, but that’s her courage.” Caroline was not allowed to rise and after breakfast and an hour with Sophia behind the locked door she announced her readiness to see the doctor, who diagnosed nothing more serious than a chill. She was very much disgusted with his order to stay in bed. She had not had a day in bed for years; she believed people were only ill when they wanted to be and, as she did not wish to be, she was not ill. She had no resource but to be unpleasant to Sophia, to the silently devoted Susan and to Rose who had intended to go to Sales Hall with Henrietta. She was not able to do that, but later in the afternoon she set out to meet her so that she might have company for part of the dark way home.