ice say, "Rather rude!" then another, "Not
wanted, that's plain!"--the first a woman's, the second a man's. Then
another voice, clear and cold, and well modulated, said to her father:
"They tell me you have been here a long time, and have had much pain.
You will be glad to go, I am sure."

Something in the voice startled her. Some familiar sound or inflection
struck upon her ear with a far-off note, some lost tone she knew. Of
what, of whom, did this voice remind her? She turned round quickly and
caught two cold blue eyes looking at her. The face was older than her
own, handsome and still, and happy in a placid sort of way. Few gusts of
passion or of pain had passed across that face. The figure was shapely
to the newest fashion, the bonnet was perfect, the hand which held two
books was prettily gloved. Polite charity was written in her manner and
consecrated every motion. On the instant, Rosalie resented this fine
epitome of convention, this dutiful charity-monger, herself the centre
of an admiring quartet. She saw the whispering, she noted the well-bred
disguise of interest, and she met the visitor's gaze with cold courtesy.
The other read the look in her face, and a slightly pacifying smile
gathered at her lips.

"We are glad to hear that your father is better. He has been ill a long
time?"

Rosalie started again, for the voice perplexed her--rather, not the
voice, but the inflection, the deliberation.

She bowed, and set her lips, but, chancing to glance at her father, she
saw that he was troubled by her manner. Flashing a look of love at him,
she adjusted the pillow under his head, and said to her questioner in a
low voice: "He is better now, thank you."

Encouraged, the other rejoined: "May I leave one or two books for him
to read--or for you to read to him?" Then added hastily, for she saw a
curious look in Rosalie's eyes: "We can have mutual friends in books,
though we cannot be friends with each other. Books are the go-betweens
of humanity."

Rosalie's heart leapt, she flushed, then grew slightly pale, for it
was not tone or inflection alone that disturbed her now, but words
themselves. A voice from over the hills seemed to say these things to
her. A haunting voice from over the hills had said them to her--these
very words.

"Friends need no go-betweens," she said quietly, "and enemies should not
use them."

She heard a voice say, "By Jove!" in a tone of surprise, as though it
were wonderful the girl