re, now afford to redeem her place in the esteem of
her partner by playing her very best, without the slightest danger of
taking a single trick.

To be brief, through Rose's management Mr. Rockharrt and Cora won the
rubber, and the Iron King rose from the card table exultant, for what
old whist player is not pleased with winning the rubber?

"My child," he said to Rose Stillwater, "this is altogether the
pleasantest evening that we have passed since we left the city, and all
through you bringing life and activity among us! I do not think we can
ever afford to let you go."

"Oh, sir! you are too good. Would to heaven that I might find some place
in your household akin to that which I once filled during the happiest
years of my life, when I lived here as your dear granddaughter's
governess," said Rose Stillwater, with a sigh and a smile.

"You shall never leave us again with my consent. Ah, we have had a very
pleasant evening. What do you think, Clarence?"

"Very pleasant for the winners, sir," replied the young man, with a good
humored laugh, as he lighted his bed room candle and bade them all good
night.

Soon after the little party separated and retired for the night.

As time passed, Rose Stillwater continued to make herself more and more
useful to her host and benefactor. She enlivened his table and his
evenings at home by her cheerful conversation, her music and her games.
She waited on him hand and foot, helped him on and off with his wraps
when he went out or came in; warmed his slippers, filled his pipe, dried
his newspapers, served him in innumerable little ways with a childlike
eagerness and delight that was as the incense of frankincense and myrrh
to the nostrils of the egotist.

And he praised her and held her up as a model to his granddaughter.

Rose Stillwater was a proper young woman, a model young woman, all
indeed that a woman should be. He had never seen one to approach her
status in all his long life. She was certainly the most excellent of her
sex. He did not know what in this gloomy house they could ever do
without her.

Such was the burden of his talk to Cora.

Mrs. Rothsay gave but cold assent to all this. She had too much
reverence for the fifth commandment to tell her grandfather what she
thought of the situation--that Rose Stillwater was making a notable fool
of him, either for the sake of keeping a comfortable home, or gaining a
place in his will, or of something greater still whic