e, who had looked as grave as a judge while Jacintha was present,
bubbled into laughter. She even repeated Jacintha's words aloud, and
chuckled over them. "You know she always takes the colonel out with her
now--ha, ha, ha!"

"Rose!" sighed a distant voice.

She looked round, and saw the baroness at some distance in the corridor,
coming slowly towards her, with eyes bent gloomily on the ground. Rose
composed her features into a settled gravity, and went to meet her.

"I wish to speak with you," said the baroness; "let us sit down; it is
cool here."

Rose ran and brought a seat without a back, but well stuffed, and set it
against the wall. The old lady sat down and leaned back, and looked at
Rose in silence a good while; then she said,--

"There is room for you; sit down, for I want to speak seriously to you."

"Yes, mamma; what is it?"

"Turn a little round, and let me see your face."

Rose complied; and began to feel a little uneasy.

"Perhaps you can guess what I am going to say to you?"

"I have no idea."

"Well, I am going to put a question to you."

"With all my heart, dear mamma."

"I invite you to explain to me the most singular, the most unaccountable
thing that ever fell under my notice. Will you do this for your mother?"

"O mamma! of course I will do anything to please you that I can; but,
indeed, I don't know what you mean."

"I am going to tell you."

The old lady paused. The young one, naturally enough, felt a chill of
vague anxiety strike across her frame.

"Rose," said the old lady, speaking very gently but firmly, and leaning
in a peculiar way on her words, while her eye worked like an ice gimlet
on her daughter's face, "a little while ago, when my poor Raynal--our
benefactor--was alive--and I was happy--you all chilled my happiness by
your gloom: the whole house seemed a house of mourning--tell me now why
was this."

"Mamma!" said Rose, after a moment's hesitation, "we could hardly be
gay. Sickness in the house! And if Colonel Raynal was alive, still he
was absent, and in danger."

"Oh! then it was out of regard for him we were all dispirited?"

"Why, I suppose so," said Rose, stoutly; but then colored high at her
own want of candor. However, she congratulated herself that her mother's
suspicion was confined to past events.

Her self-congratulation on that score was short; for the baroness, after
eying her grimly for a second or two in silence, put her this awkward
question p