"I want thee to eat some lunch, my Isabelle."
A white face turned toward her. The very sun-brown seemed to have been seared off by suffering.
"I can't eat, dear Mrs. Benjamin," she said.
"I've been thinking that we might make a plan, dear," the older woman said, setting the tray aside and dismissing it. She drew a chair beside the girl and took her cold hands. "Thou wilt go to this school, as thy mother wishes, but when thou hast finished--it is only two years--if thee thinks the kind of life thy mother plans for thee too uncongenial, thee must come back to us, and help us with the school. There will always be a place for thee here, my child."
"But two years in that loathsome school!"
"Thee dost not know that it's loathsome. I've no doubt that if thee will take the right spirit with thee, it may be very good for thee. There are opportunities in that great city which Hill Top cannot offer."
"But there won't be any Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin! Oh, Mrs. Benjamin, why couldn't you have been my mother?"
"I should have been proud to be, Isabelle," she answered simply. "Thou art as dear to me as a daughter."
Isabelle bent and kissed the kind hands that held her own, but she shed no tears.
"We all have bitter, disappointing things to meet. I shall expect my daughter to meet them with a fine courage," she smiled.
"I'll try," said Isabelle; "but I'd rather die than leave here."
"Thee has met life very squarely, so far as I have known thee. This is a test of thy quality, and I know thee will meet it like my true daughter."
The girl's eyes brimmed at that, but she looked off over the hills and merely nodded. Presently she rose and leaned her cheek for a second against Mrs. Benjamin's hair.
"It's all right, mother Benjamin," she said, with the old ring in her voice.
The subject was not mentioned again. Save for a somewhat closer affection, a tenderer devotion on Isabelle's part, no one would have known that they were facing a separation, which was an agony of dread to the girl. As Mr. Benjamin had said, of his wisdom: "Sorrow strikes so deep at that age."
She took her part in the duties and pleasures of the days. But the Benjamins' loving eyes marked a change. She brought no yeoman's appetite to the table, she had to be urged to eat. The morning often brought her downstairs with dark circles about her eyes.