erself, "are even you glad to
keep away from me?"

She hid her face in her hands; desolate and miserable as she had been
before, she now felt more completely alone.

In a few minutes something warm touching her feet made her look up, and
with one bound Friskarina sprung into her lap, carrying in her mouth
a young kitten. She purred contentedly, looking first at her child and
then at her mistress, saying as plainly as if she had spoken:

"Will this comfort you?"

Erica stroked and kissed both cat and kitten, and for the first time
since her trouble a feeling of warmth came to her frozen heart.

CHAPTER IX. Rose

A life of unalloyed content,
A life like that of land-locked seas.
J. R. Lowell

"Elspeth, you really must tell me, I'm dying of curiosity, and I can see
by your face you know all about it! How is it that grandpapa's name is
in the papers when he has been dead all these years? I tell you I saw
it, a little paragraph in today's paper, headed, 'Mr. Luke Raeburn.' Is
this another namesake who has something to do with him?"

The speaker was a tall, bright-looking girl of eighteen, a blue-eyed,
flaxen-haired blond, with a saucy little mouth, about which there now
lurked an expression of undisguised curiosity. Rose, for that was her
name, was something of a coax, and all her life long she had managed
to get her own way; she was an only child, and had been not a little
spoiled; but in spite of many faults she was lovable, and beneath her
outer shell of vanity and self-satisfaction there lay a sterling little
heart.

Her companion, Elspeth, was a wrinkled old woman, whose smooth gray
hair was almost hidden by a huge mob-cap, which, in defiance of modern
custom, she wore tied under her chin. She had nursed Rose and her mother
before her and had now become more like a family friend than a servant.

"Miss Rose," she replied, looking up from her work, "if you go on
chatter-magging away like this, there'll be no frock ready for you
tonight," and with a most uncommunicative air, the old woman turned
away, and gave a little impressive shake to the billowy mass of white
tarletan to which she was putting the finishing touches.

"The white lilies just at the side," said Rose, her attention diverted
for a moment. "Won't it be lovely! The prettiest dress in the room, I'm
sure." Then, her curiosity returning, "But, Elspeth, I sha'nt enjoy the
dance a bit unless you tell me what Mr. Luke Raeburn has to