s,
just like that, and Frank says, right after her, 'Yes, it'll clean.' He
knew a lot about it, he did. She had psychologised him."

"You mean hypnotised," interrupted Grandmother. "There ain't no such
word as 'psychologised.'"

[Sidenote: Resentment]

"Well, if there ain't, there ought to be."

"The pink has come out in the blood, too," Grandmother remarked,
adjusting her spectacles firmly upon the ever-useful and unfailing wart.
"She was wearin' pink roses on her bonnet and pink ribbon strings. It
wouldn't surprise me if it was the very strings what Rosemary has found
in the trunk and is layin' out to wear."

"Me neither," Matilda chimed in.

"She was wearin' lace on her petticoats and high-heeled shoes, and all
her handkerchiefs was fine linen," Grandmother continued. "Maybe you'd
like some lace ruffles under your grey alpaca, wouldn't you, Rosemary?"

The girl got to her feet blindly. She gathered up the dishes with cold
hands that trembled, took them out into the kitchen, and noiselessly
closed the door. Her heart was hot with resentment, even though she had
heard the story, with variations, ever since she was old enough to
understand it.

"Poor little mother," said Rosemary, to herself. "Dear little mother!
Why couldn't you have taken me with you!"

As Grandmother had said, for the hundredth time and more, Frank Starr
had brought home his young wife unexpectedly. The surprise, in itself,
was a shock from which she and Matilda had never recovered. Even now,
they were fond of alluding to the years of ill-health directly caused by
it, and of subtly blaming Rosemary for it.

[Sidenote: An Orphan]

At the end of the third day, the young couple had departed hastily, the
bride in tears. A year or so afterward, when Rosemary was born, the
little mother died, having lived only long enough to ask that the baby
be named "Rosemary"--Rose for her own mother and Mary for Grandmother
Starr.

Stern, white-faced, and broken-hearted, Frank Starr brought his child to
his mother and sister, and almost immediately went West. Intermittently
he wrote briefly, sent money, gave insufficient addresses, or none at
all, and, at length, disappeared. At the time his last letter was
written, he had expected to take a certain steamer plying along the
Western coast. As the ship was wrecked and he was never heard from
again, it seemed that Rosemary was an orphan, dependent upon her
grandmother and aunt.

In their way, they were k