als in this house
before the winter is over."

"Then we must try and enliven it up a little for you. What would you
like, a house-warming?"

"Oh, papa! that would be delightful."

"All right, then, a house-warming it shall be. We must speak to Grace
and Kate about it; hold a council of war, you know, and settle
preliminaries. I can't spare my little Rosie just yet, and let her run
away to Ottawa."

Rose gave him a rapturous kiss, and Captain Danton walked away, unlocked
the green baize door, and disappeared.

When Kate came back from her ride, Rose informed her of her father's
proposal with sparkling eyes. Kate listened quietly, and made no
objection; neither did Grace; and so the matter was decided.

Rose had no time to be lonely after that. Her father gave her _carte
blanche_ in the matter of dress and ornament, and Miss Rose's earthly
happiness was complete. She, and Kate, and Grace went to Montreal to
make the necessary purchases, to lasso dressmakers and fetch them back
to St. Croix.

"I know a young woman I think will suit you," said Ma'am Ledru, the
cook. "She is an excellent dressmaker and embroideress; very poor, and
quite willing, I am sure, to go into the country. Her name is Agnes
Darling, and she lives in the Petite Rue de Saint Jacques."

Rose hastened to the Petite Rue de Saint Jacques at once, and in a small
room of a tenement house found the seamstress; a little pale, dark-eyed,
dark-haired creature, with a face that was a history of trouble, though
her years could not have numbered twenty. There was no difficulty in
engaging her: she promised to be ready to return with them to St. Croix
the following morning.

They only spent two days in the city, and were, of course, very busy all
the time. Grace took a few moments to try and find her brother, but
failed. He was not to be heard of at his customary address; he had been
talking of quitting Montreal, they told her there; probably he had done
so.

The Dantons, with the pale little dressmaker, returned next day, all
necessaries provided. The business of the house-warming commenced at
once. Danton Hall--ever spotless under the reign of Grace--was rubbed up
and scrubbed down from garret to cellar. Invitations were sent out far
and wide. Agnes Darling's needle flew from early dawn till late at
night; and Grace and the cook, absorbed in cake and jelly-making, were
invisible all day long in the lower regions. Eeny and Rose went heart
and soul into