Ruth, meantime, was watching her with a half-terrified fascination. She was so calm, so self-possessed, so utterly without feeling of any sort, apparently. What was to be said to her? and what good could come in any way from that which now began to look like interference? She was not in the least prepared for the sudden change which the closing of that door seemed to make.
The girl turned with an impetuous movement and seemed to fly, rather than walk, over the space between them, and, flinging herself in a crushed little heap in front of her guest, hid her face on Mrs. Burnham's lap and burst into a passion of weeping.
"Poor little girl!" Ruth said softly, and laid her hand tenderly on the bowed head. There seemed no other word that could be spoken until the storm of weeping had in a degree subsided.
"Oh, do forgive me!" the child said, after a minute, but without raising her head. "I did not mean to cry, I meant to control myself; I thought I could, through it all, but I am so wretched! and she--she freezes me! she wants me to be resigned, and to remember how much better off I am than some other girls who have no one to look after them, and it doesn't help me one bit. I am so glad that you have come! You are Aunt Mamie's friend, so you can't be like Madame Sternheim; and you won't tell me that Aunt Mamie isn't related to me in the most distant degree and in the nature of things cannot be, will you? I can see that you are not like the Madame the least bit in the world, and I am glad, _glad_! Oh! I am a very wicked girl! I ought not to have said that; she is good, she is _very_ good; and she is patient with my faults and follies; and yet--there are times when I almost hate her! Oh, dear! what will you think of me? I don't act like this very often; I don't cry often--I don't cry at all! but now I must, or I shall die!"
Then followed another outburst of passionate weeping.
"Cry as much as you want to, dear child," Ruth said. "It is only natural, and will do you good."
All the time her hand was moving over the tumbled masses of hair, making quiet, soothing passes.
After a little the girl sat up and brushed away the tears. "I can't think what made me," she said. "Only you reminded me of Aunt Mamie, and then--it all came back. I don't know what I am to do; it seems to me that I cannot live without her, but I have got to; and without--everybody. It does seem sometimes as though there was never another girl in the world so utterly alone; but Madame Sternheim says there are, hundreds of them, even in this city! I am so sorry for them all! I wish they could die and go to heaven. I wish I could, with papa. But Madame Sternheim says--" she stopped abruptly and struggled for self-control, and spoke almost fiercely.