ce.

"Is there anything new with miladi?" she inquired, with some hesitation.

"It seems a gradual wasting away and weakness. She thinks she will be
better when spring opens, and longs to return to France. I am putting my
affairs in shape to make this possible. She is very lonely. She has
missed your brightness and vivacity. It has seemed a different place."

Rose's heart swelled with pity. She forgave Madame from the depths of
her heart, remembering only the old times and the tenderness.

"When shall I come?"

"At once. She begged for you last week, but I was afraid it was a
restless fancy. The road is quite well broken. What a winter we have
had! The drought last summer shortened crops, and there have been so
many extra mouths to feed among the unfortunate Indians. So if you will
inform the Heberts--I have seen Monsieur."

She went through to the kitchen, where mother and daughter were
concocting savory messes for the sick. They both returned with her and
expressed much sympathy for the invalid. M. Hebert had said to his wife
that miladi was slowly nearing her end, while her real disease seemed a
mystery, but medical lore in the new world had not made much advance.

"We shall only lend her to you for a while," Madame Hebert said, with a
faint smile. "I hardly know how Monsieur will do without her. She is
truly a rose-bloom in this dreary winter, that seems as if it would
never end."

"And I want her to bloom for a while in the room where my poor sick wife
has to stay. She longs for some freshness and sweetness," he said, in a
pleading tone.

"She was rightly named," said Madame, with a smile. "Her poor mother
must have died, I am quite sure, for she could not have sent away such
an adorable child. Even when Mere Dubray had her, she was charming, in
her wild, eager ways, like a bird. The good God made her a living Rose,
indeed, to show how lovely a human Rose could be."

She came in the room wrapped in her furs, her hood with its border of
silver-fox framing in her face, that glowed with youth and health.

"You have all been so good to me," and her beautiful eyes were alight
with gratitude. "I shall come in often, and oh, I shall think of you
every hour in the day."

"Do not forget the latest pattern of lace-making," added the practical,
industrious Therese.

It was glorious without, a white world with a sky of such deep blue it
almost sparkled. Leafless trees stretched out long black or gray arms,
and