On inquiry, I found that she had been suddenly taken ill, and had gone up-stairs to her own room to lie down.
"Curious! She looked well enough when I saw her last," I remarked.
Penelope followed me out.

"Don't talk in that way before the rest of them, father," she said.

"You only make them harder on Rosanna than ever.

The poor thing is breaking her heart about Mr.Franklin Blake." Here was another view of the girl's conduct.

If it was possible for Penelope to be right, the explanation of Rosanna's strange language and behaviour might have been all in this--that she didn't care what she said, so long as she could surprise Mr.Franklin into speaking to her.
Granting that to be the right reading of the riddle, it accounted, perhaps, for her flighty, self-conceited manner when she passed me in the hall.