The state of things, indoors and out, while
Sergeant Cuff was on his way to Frizingball,
was briefly this:

Miss Rachel waited for the time when the
carriage was to take her to her aunt's, still
obstinately shut up in her own room. My lady
and Mr. Franklin breakfasted together. After
breakfast, Mr. Franklin took one of his sudden
resolutions, and went out precipitately to quiet
his mind by a long walk. I was the only person
who saw him go; and he told me he should
be back before the Sergeant returned. The
change in the weather, foreshadowed over-night,
had come. Heavy rain had been followed, soon
after dawn, by high wind. It was blowing
fresh as the day got on. But though the clouds
threatened more than once, the rain still held
off. It was not a bad day for a walk, if you
were young and strong, and could breast the
great gusts of wind which came sweeping in
from the sea.

I attended my lady after breakfast, and
assisted her in the settlement of our household
accounts. She only once alluded to the matter
of the Moonstone, and that was in the way of
forbidding any present mention of it between us.
"Wait till that man comes back," she said,
meaning the Sergeant. "We must speak of it
then: we are not obliged to speak of it now."

After leaving my mistress, I found Penelope
waiting for me in my room.

"I wish, father, you would come and speak
to Rosanna," she said. "I am very uneasy
about her."

I suspected what was the matter readily
enough. But it is a maxim of mine that men
(being superior creatures) are bound to improve
women— if they can. When a woman wants me
to do anything (my daughter, or not, it doesn't
matter), I always insist on knowing why. The
oftener you make them rummage their own
minds for a reason, the more manageable you
will find them in all the relations of life. It
isn't their fault (poor wretches!) that they act
first, and think afterwards; it's the fault of the
fools who humour them.

Penelope's reason why, on this occasion, may
be given in her own words. "I'm afraid, father,"
she said, "Mr. Franklin has hurt Rosanna
cruelly, without intending it."

"What took Rosanna into the shrubbery
walk?" I asked.

"Her own madness," says Penelope; "I can
call it nothing else. She was bent on speaking
to Mr. Franklin, this morning, come what might
of it. I did my best to stop her; you saw that.
If I could only have got her away before she
heard those dreadful words——"

"There! there!" I said, "don't lose your
head. I can't call to mind that anything
happened to alarm Rosanna."

"Nothing to alarm her, father. But Mr.
Franklin said he took no interest whatever in
her— and, oh, he said it in such a cruel voice!"

"He said it to stop the Sergeant's mouth,"
I answered.

"I told her that," says Penelope. "But you
see, father (though Mr. Franklin isn't to blame),
he's been mortifying and disappointing her for
weeks and weeks past; and now this comes on
the top of it all! She has no right, of course,
to expect him to take any interest in her. It's
quite monstrous that she should forget herself
and her station in that way. But she seems to
have lost pride, and proper feeling, and
everything. She frightened me, father, when Mr.
Franklin said those words. They seemed to
turn her into stone. A sudden quiet came over
her, and she has gone about her work, ever
since, like a woman in a dream."

I began to feel a little uneasy. There was
something in the way Penelope put it which
silenced my superior sense. I called to mind,
now my thoughts were directed that way, what
had passed between Mr. Franklin and Rosanna
overnight. She looked cut to the heart on that
occasion; and now, as ill-luck would have it,
she had been unavoidably stung again, poor
soul, on the tender place. Sad! sad!— all the
more sad because the girl had no reason to
justify her, and no right to feel it.

I had promised Mr. Franklin to speak to
Rosanna, and this seemed the fittest time for
keeping my word.

We found the girl sweeping the corridor
outside the bedrooms, pale and composed, and neat
as ever in her modest print dress. I noticed a
curious dimness and dulness in her eyes— not
as if she had been crying, but as if she had been
looking at something too long. Possibly, it
was a misty something raised by her own
thoughts. There was certainly no object about
her to look at which she had not seen already
hundreds on hundreds of times.

"Cheer up, Rosanna!" I said. "You
mustn't fret over your own fancies. I have got
something to say to you from Mr. Franklin."

I thereupon put the matter in the right view
before her, in the friendliest and most comforting
words I could find. My principles, in
regard to the other sex, are, as you may have
noticed, very severe. But somehow or other,
when I come face to face with the women, my
practice (I own) is not conformable.

"Mr. Franklin is very kind and considerate.
Please to thank him." That was all the answer
she made me.

My daughter had already noticed that Rosanna
went about her work like a woman in a dream.
I now added to this observation, that she also
listened and spoke like a woman in a dream. I
doubted if her mind was in a fit condition to
take in what I had said to her.

"Are you quite sure, Rosanna, that you
understand me?" I asked.

"Quite sure."

She echoed me, not like a living woman, but
like a creature moved by machinery. She went
on sweeping all the time. I took away the
broom as gently and as kindly as I could.

"Come, come, my girl!" I said, "this is
not like yourself. You have got something
on your mind. I'm your friend and I'll stand
your friend, even if you have done wrong.