that I'd like a plainer one, I can't be sorry
that she gave it to me. For it was a part of her--a gift that was built
out of her imagination," all at once she coughed, perhaps to cover the
slight tremor in her voice, and then--

"To change the subject," she said, "I'll tell you what Rosemary really
is. You said that you thought it was a flower. It's more than a flower,"
she laughed shakily, "it's a sturdy, evergreeny sort of little shrub. It
has a clean fragrance, a trifle like mint. And it bears small blue
blossoms. Folk say that it stands for remembrance," suddenly her eyes
were down, again, upon her clasped hands. "Let's stop talking about
flowers and the country--and mothers--" she said suddenly. Her voice
broke upon the last word.

The Young Doctor's understanding glance was on the girl's down-bent face.
After a moment he spoke.

"Are you ever sorry that you left the home town, Miss Rose-Marie?" he
questioned.

Rose-Marie looked at him, for a moment, to see whether he was serious.
And then, as no flicker of mirth stirred his mouth, she answered.

"Sometimes I'm homesick," she said. "Usually after the lights are out, at
night. But I'm never sorry!"

The Young Doctor was staring off into space--past the raised platform
where the girls of the club were performing.

"I wonder," he said, after a moment, "I wonder if you can imagine what it
is to have nothing in the world to be lonesome for, Miss Rose-Marie?"

Rose-Marie felt a quick wave of sympathy toward him.

"My mother and my father are dead, Dr. Blanchard--you know that," she
told him, "but my aunts have always been splendid," she added honestly,
"and I have any number of friends! No, I've never felt at all alone!"

The Young Doctor was silent for a moment. And then--

"It isn't an alone feeling that I mean," he told her, "not exactly! It's
rather an empty feeling! Like hunger, almost. You see my father and
mother are dead, too. I can't even remember them. And I never had any
aunts to be splendid to me. My childhood--even my babyhood--was spent in
an orphan asylum with a firm-fisted matron who punished me; with nobody
to give me the love I needed. I came out of it a hard man--at fourteen.
I--" he broke off, suddenly, and then--

"I don't know why I'm telling you all this," he said; "you wouldn't be in
the least interested in my school days--they were pretty drab! And you
wouldn't be interested in the scholarship that gave me my profession.
For," his