oks. Music was the only point at which
he touched the culture of the times, like so many business men; but it
pleased him also to pose as a patron of local art; so that when Rose
went to stay with her childless uncle and aunt, she found long-haired
artists and fiery musicians about the place, who excited and encouraged
her musical gift, who sketched her while she played, and talked to the
pretty, clever, unformed creature of London and Paris, and Italy,
and set her pining for that golden _vie de Boheme_ which she alone
apparently of all artists was destined never to know.

For she was an artist--she would be an artist--let Catherine say what
she would! She came back from Manchester restless for she knew not
what, thirsty for the joys and emotions of art, determined to be free,
reckless, passionate; with Wagner and Brahms in her young blood; and
found Burwood waiting for her, Burwood, the lonely house in the lonely
valley, of which Catherine was the presiding genius. _Catherine!_ For
Rose, what a multitude of associations clustered round the name! To her
it meant everything at this moment against which her soul rebelled--the
most scrupulous order, the most rigid self-repression, the most
determined sacrificing of 'this warm kind world,' with all its
indefensible delights, to a cold other-world, with its torturing,
inadmissible claims. Even in the midst of her stolen joys at Manchester
or London, this mere name, the mere mental image of Catherine moving
through life, wrapped in a religious peace and certainty as austere
as they were beautiful, and asking of all about her the same absolute
surrender to an awful Master she gave so easily herself, was enough to
chill the wayward Rose, and fill her with a kind of restless despair.
And at home, as the vicar said, the two sisters were always on the
verge of conflict. Rose had enough of her father in her to suffer in
resisting, but resist she must by the law of her nature.

Now, as she threw off her walking things, she fell first upon her
violin, and rushed through a Brahms' 'Liebeslied,' her eyes dancing, her
whole light form thrilling with the joy of it; and then with a sudden
revulsion she stopped playing, and threw herself down listlessly by the
open window. Close by against the wall was a little looking-glass, by
which she often arranged her ruffled locks; she glanced at it now, it
showed her a brilliant face enough, but drooping lips, and eyes darkened
with the extravagan