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Updated: June 9, 2025
Then there being nothing that she could think of to say, she stood waiting for Mrs. Horton to speak. But Mrs. Horton wearily turned her gray face to the wall and sighed. "Would you mind if I go up and speak to Minnie?" Helen asked timidly. "Not at all," answered Mrs. Horton. "It comforts me to know that there is a child in the house. I think you will find Minnie in Rosanna's room.
I despatched the first woman-servant I could find to Rosanna's room; and I sent the boy back to say that I myself would follow him with the boot. This, I am well aware, was not the quickest way to take of obeying the directions which I had received. But I was resolved to see for myself what new mystification was going on before I trusted Rosanna's boot in the Sergeant's hands.
I said, quite unabashed, and just as airy as ever. "First," said the Sergeant, "you will hear something from the Yollands when the postman delivers Rosanna's letter at Cobb's Hole, on Monday next." If he had thrown a bucket of cold water over me, I doubt if I could have felt it much more unpleasantly than I felt those words.
But for that outfit, we should have discovered a new nightgown or petticoat among Rosanna's things, and have nailed her in that way. You're not at a loss to follow me, are you? You have examined the servants yourself, and you know what discoveries two of them made outside Rosanna's door. Surely you know what the girl was about yesterday, after she was taken ill? You can't guess?
The upstairs part was a really lovely little apartment for the chauffeur to live in, but all the windows had been put on the side or in front because old Mrs. Horton, Rosanna's grandmother, did not think that chauffeurs' families were ever the sort who ought to look down into the garden where Rosanna played and where she herself sat in state and had tea served of an afternoon.
She is a nice plump young lass, and it is customary with me to adopt that manner of showing that I personally approve of a girl. "What's wrong now?" I said once more. "Rosanna's late again for dinner," says Nancy. "And I'm sent to fetch her in. All the hard work falls on my shoulders in this house. Let me alone, Mr. Betteredge!" The person here mentioned as Rosanna was our second housemaid.
A big tree growing in the alley, close outside the brick wall, leaned its biggest bough in a friendly fashion over Rosanna's garden. High up something blue fluttered among the thick leaves. Then the branches parted, and a face appeared. Rosanna continued to stare. The little girl in the tree waved her hand. "You don't know me, do you, Rosanna?" she teased. "But I know you.
She was really a thin little girl who had often had to take cod liver oil. In the mirror she gazed at a fat chunk with Rosanna's features and hair and about ten times Rosanna's breadth. It was quite terrifying. Then she heard an awed gasp from Helen followed by a shriek of laughter, and ran over to see what was left of Helen in a mirror that had drawn her out to the thickness of a needle.
It was Rosanna's dream to have a dimple in her thin little cheek. Rosanna commenced to play scales. She took the C scale it was so easy that she could think. She was so happy that she played it in a very prancy way, up and down, up and down. Then it commenced to stumble and go ve-ry, v-e-r-y slowly. Rosanna had had an awful thought.
She had not looked it up in the dictionary or she would have chosen some other word because being ordinary according to the dictionary is no crime at all. It is not even a disgrace. Rosanna's books were always about flowers and fairies, or animals that talked, or music that romped up and down the bars spelling little words.
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