you mean, dear?"

"I don't know how to tell you. Only, he is so true he makes me want to
be true, too. He wants to do the hardest thing. This is the hardest
thing for me. And I want to go and be honest, not stay and have you all
make it easy for me to be honest. And I want to prove myself, to use my
voice. I don't intend to be supported by my father. But when I have
established myself, I shall come back."

She felt as if she were talking to Osmond himself, and as if his idea of
great world spaces and inevitable meetings made it certain for them to
part without loss.

Grannie was thinking. She gave a little sigh.

"What is it?" asked Rose.

"Osmond likes you very much, doesn't he?" asked the old lady.

"It isn't exactly liking. We understand each other. He is different from
anybody."

"Yes."

"He understands me almost before I speak. It is comfortable to be with
him."

"Yes. And the boy finds it comfortable to be with you."

"Oh, yes! It is because it is so exactly alike for us both. That is why
we are so contented together."

"He will miss you when you are gone."

"Oh, but not as I shall miss him! He is so sure of things. He knows so
well when the cord between us is holding. But I shall doubt. I shall
want to hear his voice."

Grannie sighed again. She was a happy old woman in her certainties; but
sometimes she felt tired, with the gentle lassitude of the old. She had
been with Osmond through every step of his difficult way, and she had
hoped some tragedies would be spared them both. Much as she believed in
ultimate good fortune, she had to shrink from his desiring woman's love.
Yet this was to be. A little jealous doubt of the girl crept into her
troubled heart. Was she light of love, a lady of enchantments who could
appear out of nowhere and make all these strange happenings seem
commonplace until her fickle destiny should snatch her away again,
leaving hurt and mourning hearts behind? Grannie was humbly conscious
that there were many things outside her world, exotic flowers of life
her upland pastures did not breed. That they were poison flowers she
could not well believe; but when her dear boy tasted the essence of
them, she had to pause and sternly think it over, whether it was well.

"My dear," she said, "you must be honest with him." The gentle voice had
steel in it.

"Honest? With Osmond? How should I be anything else? What reason--why,
grannie!"

"Osmond is not like other men."

"He is b