"Now, then, Jessy; you must let us know a little about yourself," began Susan on this same afternoon when she was with her alone, and Jessy lay apparently stronger, refreshed with the dinner and the long rest. Abigail had gone to church with Mr. Page. Susan could not remember that any of them had gone to church before on Christmas-Day after the morning service: but there was no festive gathering to keep them at home to-day. Unconsciously, perhaps, Susan resented the fact. Even John Drench was dining at his father's. "Where have you been all this while in London?"
Jessy suddenly lifted her arm to shade her eyes; and remained silent.
"It _is_ in London, I conclude, that you have been? Come: answer me."
"And _where_ have you been? In what part of it?--who with?"
"Don't ask me," was the low reply, given with a suppressed sob.
"Not ask you! But we must ask you. And you must answer. Where have you been, and what have you been doing?"
"I--can't tell," sobbed Jessy. "The story is too long."
"Story too long!" echoed Susan quickly, "you might say in half-a-dozen words--and leave explanations until to-morrow. Did you find a place in town?"
Jessy turned her face to the wall, and never spoke.
"Now, this won't do," cried Miss Susan, not choosing to be thwarted: and no doubt Jessy, hearing the determined tone, felt something like a reed in her hands. "Just you tell me a little."
"I am very ill, Susan; I can't talk much," was the pleading excuse. "If you'd only let me be quiet."
"It will no more hurt you to say in a few words where you have been than to make excuses," persisted Miss Susan, giving a flick to the skirt of her new puce silk gown. "Your conduct altogether has been most extraordinary, quite baffling to us at home, and I must hear some explanation of it."
"The place I went to was too hard for me," said Jessy after a pause, speaking out of the pillow.
"Yes; too hard. My heart was breaking with its hardness, and I couldn't stop in it. Oh, be merciful to me, Susan! don't ask any more."
Susan Page thought that when mysterious answers like these were creeping out, there was all the greater need that she should ask for more.
"Who found you the place at first, Jessy?"
"I--got it through an advertisement," said Jessy at length.