etter. He is like a spirit."

"No. He is only a man that's had heavy loads to carry. You mustn't be
cruel to him."

"Grannie, I never heard you speak like that. You have been so kind."

"I am kind now, but Osmond is my boy. Do you feel to him as you did to
Tom Fulton?"

"Oh!" It was a cry of pain. "What has Tom Fulton to do with it, to do
with me?" the girl asked, in that hurt surprise. "All I want is to
forget him. He made himself beautiful to me because he lied to me. The
things I loved he said he loved--and then he laughed at them. But
Osmond--what has Osmond to do with Tom Fulton?"

"You have made Osmond love you," said grannie. "That's all."

The chamber was very still. Rose could hear the ticking of grannie's
watch beside her on the stand. Presently she spoke in a wondering tone.

"Love me? Grannie, is it that?"

"What did you think it was?"

"I didn't think. I thought it was something greater."

"There is nothing greater, Rose. Is there anything more terrible?"

The girl turned her face over, and dropped it for a minute on the hollow
of the old woman's arm. Then she spoke, and to grannie's amazement she
laughed a little, too.

"Oh, I never dreamed I could be so happy!"

"Happy! But is he happy?"

"He must be, if he knows it. Do you think he knows it, grannie?"

"I'm afraid he does, my dear," said grannie sadly.

"Has he told you so?"

"Not a word."

"If he does, tell me, grannie. Betray him. I need to know everything he
knows--everything."

It was a new Rose, one none of them in America had yet seen. There were
tumultuous yearnings in her voice, innocent insistencies; she seemed to
be clamoring for life, the boon that it was right and sweet for her to
have.

"He doesn't speak of you," said grannie. "What could come of it, if he
did?"

"What could come of it? Everything could come of it. I shall write him
by every mail. Tell him that. I will write him all my life, every minute
of it from morning till night. And I will come back, soon, soon,--as
soon as I have earned money to be honest on. Tell him that, grannie."

But grannie sighed.

"I am afraid you are not very reasonable," she said. "And I shouldn't
dare to give him such messages. How do I know what they would mean to
him? Why, my dear, you may meet some young man to-morrow, any day. You
may want to marry him. What do you think Osmond would feel, if you wrote
and told him that?"

"Why," said Rose, in a pained surprise, "you have