Where the girl would go to, Mrs. Hanson did not know, she never gave it a thought.
"She did say, she did hate me!" the old woman thought. "Hate—a perilous wicked thing for a young gell to say—and to abide in a house of hatred, I will not! There’s the Bible for it—’Better a dinner of yarbs and contentment therewith than a stalled ox in the house——’" Mrs. Hanson looked up, a shadow had fallen across the window, there came a light tapping on the door.
"Bless me and bless my dear soul!" said Mrs. Hanson aloud, "if here b’ain’t my Lady Homewood, Betty quick—quickly open the door to Her Ladyship, quick now! Do ’ee hear me speak?"
The door was opened by Betty. Coming from the hot bright sunlight of the outer world into the twilight of the little room, Kathleen could only see a slight, slender figure in an old cotton gown, which figure bobbed a deferential, yet it almost seemed a defiant little curtsey to her.
"This is Mrs. Hanson’s cottage?" Kathleen asked.
Mrs. Hanson had risen, she bobbed, it was no half hearted curtsey this of hers, she seemed to sink into the floor to her middle and then rose again, tall and lean and agitated.
"Mrs. Hanson I be, my Lady, and proud I be to see your Ladyship here—Betty, a chair for her Ladyship, my maid!"
Betty brought a chair, she flicked it with a duster and placed it that Kathleen might be seated.
And now Kathleen, whose sight had grown accustomed to the dimmer light of the room, could see the child plainly, and seeing her, wondered a little at the loveliness of the little piteous face, the drawn mouth, the big saddened eyes that had so evidently recently shed tears.
Poor pretty little maid! Kathleen remembered what Debly had told her of the child lying out in the grass, sobbing her heart out in the darkness of the night. She looked at the stern puritanical looking old woman and Kathleen, who was hot blooded and generous, felt instinctive dislike of her, which dislike was unjust and ill placed.
So, having come expressly about this girl with the golden hair and the sweet oval face, Kathleen, being a very diplomatic young woman, spoke of everything and anything else under the sun. She told Mrs. Hanson how often she had admired the neatness and prettiness of the little front garden.