"
I began to feel a little uneasy. There was something in the way Penelope
put it which silenced my superior sense. I called to mind, now my
thoughts were directed that way, what had passed between Mr. Franklin
and Rosanna overnight. She looked cut to the heart on that occasion; and
now, as ill-luck would have it, she had been unavoidably stung again,
poor soul, on the tender place. Sad! sad!--all the more sad because the
girl had no reason to justify her, and no right to feel it.
I had promised Mr. Franklin to speak to Rosanna, and this seemed the
fittest time for keeping my word.
We found the girl sweeping the corridor outside the bedrooms, pale
and composed, and neat as ever in her modest print dress. I noticed a
curious dimness and dullness in her eyes--not as if she had been crying
but as if she had been looking at something too long. Possibly, it was
a misty something raised by her own thoughts. There was certainly no
object about her to look at which she had not seen already hundreds on
hundreds of times.
"Cheer up, Rosanna!" I said. "You mustn't fret over your own fancies. I
have got something to say to you from Mr.
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