Rosa was seated upon the upper step of the west porch, her chin

cradled in her hand, her elbow on her knee, gazing on the darkening

sky, and crooning Scotch ballads in a pensive, dreamy way. Mabel,

from her perch, eyed her as if she were a creature belonging to

another world--seen dimly, and comprehended yet more imperfectly.

Yet it could not have been half an hour--thirty fleeting

minutes--since the two had talked as dear friends out of the fulness

of their hearts. Where were the hopes and happy memories that had

made hers then a garden of pleasant things, a fruitful field which

Heaven had blessed? In that little inch of time, the flood had come

and taken them all away.

Would the dry aching in her throat and chest ever be less? Tears had

gushed freely and healthfully after her last leave-taking with

Frederic--the looked farewell, which was all Winston's surveillance

had granted them. She had been wounded then by her brother's

singular want of tact or feeling. She had not the spirit to resent

anything to-night, unless it were that God had made and suffered to

live a being so wretched and useless as herself. She supposed it was

wicked--but she did not care! She ought to be resigned to the

mysterious dispensations of Providence--that was the prescribed

phraseology of pious people. She had heard the cant times without

number. What more would they have than her utter destitution of love

and bliss? Was she not miserable enough to satisfy the sternest

believer in purgatorial purification? to appease the wrath even of

Him who had wrought her desolation? It must be the judgment of a

retributive Deity upon her idolatrous affection that she was

bearing--her worship of Frederic. Yes, she had loved him; she loved

him now better than she did anything else upon earth--better than

she did anything in Heaven.

In the partial insanity of her woe and despair, she lifted her gray

face and vacant eyes to the vast, empty vault, beyond which dwelt

her Maker afar off, and said the words aloud--spat them at Him

through hard, ashy lips.

"I love him! I love him! You have taken him from me--but I will love

him for all that!"

Heaven--or Fate--her blasphemous mood did not distinguish the one

from the other--was a robber. Her brother was pitiless as the death

that would not answer to her call. Between them she was bereaved.

It was but a touch--the lightest breath of natural feeling that

broke up the hot crust, that shut down the fountain of tears--Rosa's

voice, tuneful and sad as a nightingale's, chanting the border-lays

she loved so well: "When I gae out at e'en.

Or walk at morning air,

Ilk rustling bush will seem to say

I used to meet thee there.

Then I'll sit down and cry,

And live beneath the tree.

And when a leaf falls in my lap,

I'll oa' it a word from thee."




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