Edward's. They were some parcels for his experiments, gun cotton and
the like, which were lying in the window till he had time to take them
upstairs. We had all been so long threatened with being blown up by his
experiments that we had grown callous and careless, and it served
us right!" she added, stroking the child's face as it looked at her,
earnest to glean fresh fragments of the terrible half-known tale of the
past. "Yes, Rosie, when you go and keep house for papa on the top of the
Oural Mountains, or wherever it may be, you are to remember that if Aunt
Ermine had not been in a foolish, inattentive mood, and had taken his
dangerous goods out of the way, she might have been trotting to church
now like other people. But poor Ailie has always helped herself to the
whole blame, and if every childish fit of temper were the root of such
qualities, what a world we should have here!"

"Ah! no wonder she is devoted to you."

"The child was not fifteen, had never known cross or care, but from that
moment she never was out of my room if it was possible to be in; and
when nurse after nurse was fairly worn out, because I could not help
being so distressing, there was always that poor child, always handy and
helpful, growing to be the chief dependence, and looking so piteously
imploring whatever was tried, that it really helped me to go through
with it. Poor Ailie," she added with an odd turn of playfulness, "I
always fancied those frowns of anxiety made her eyebrows grow together.
And ever since we came here, we know how she has worked away for her old
cinder and her small Rosebud, don't we?" she added, playfully squeezing
the child's cheeks up into a more budding look, hiding deeper and more
overcoming feelings by the sportive action. And as her sister came back,
she looked up and shook her head at her, saying,--

"You gossiping Ailie, to go ripping up old grievances. I am going to ask
Miss Curtis not to let the story go any farther, now you have relieved
your mind of it."

"I did tell Lady Temple," said Alison; "I never think it right not to
let people know what sort of person they have to teach their children."

And Grace, on feeling her way, discovered that Lady Temple had been told
the bare fact in Miss Williams's reserved and business-like manner, but
with nothing of the affair that had led to it. She merely looked on it
in the manner fully expressed by--"Ah, poor thing; how sad for her!"
as a shocking secret, never