laughing at me, she was going to say, but she stopped, for
though Graeme's lips were smiling, her eyes had a shadow in them that
looked like coming tears; and the gaze, that seemed resting on the
picture on the wall, went farther, Rose knew; but whether into the past
or the future, or whether it was searching into the reason of this new
eagerness of hers to be away and at work, she could not tell. However
it might be, it vexed and fretted her, and she showed it by sudden
impatient movements, which recalled her sister's thoughts.

"What is it, Rose? I am afraid I was thinking about something else. I
don't think I quite understand what you were saying last," said Graeme,
taking up her work as a safe thing on which to fix her eyes.

"For I must not let her see that I know there must be a cause for this
sudden wish for a new life," said she to herself. If she had done what
she longed to do, she would have taken the impatient, troubled child in
her arms, and whispered, as Janet had whispered to her that night, so
long ago, that the restless fever of her heart would pass away; she
would have soothed and comforted her, with tender words, as Janet had
not dared to do. She would have bidden her wait, and have patience with
herself and her life, till this cloud passed by--this light cloud of her
summer morning, that was only mist to make the rising day more
beautiful, and not the sign of storm and loss, as it looked to her
young, affrighted eyes.

But this she could not do. Even with certain knowledge of the troubles
which she only guessed, she knew it would be vain to come to her with
tender, pitying words, and worse than vain to try to prove that nothing
had happened to her, or was like to happen, that could make the breaking
up of her old life, and the beginning of a new one, a thing to be
thought of by herself or those who loved her. So, after a few stitches
carefully taken, for all her sister could see, she said,--

"And, then, there are so few things that a woman can do."

The words brought back so vividly that night in the dark, when she had
said them out of a sore heart to her friend, that her work fell on her
lap again, and she met her sister's eye with a look that Rose could not
understand.

"You are not thinking of what I have been saying. Why do you look at me
in that strange way?" said she, pettishly.

"I am thinking of it, indeed. And I did not know that I was looking any
other than my usual way. I