go one after the other and stay here alone. Charlie is gone, Archie
and Steve are wrapped up in their sweethearts, the boys away, and
only Jamie left to ‘play with Rose.’?
“But I’ll come back, and you’ll be glad I went if I bring you my ”
began Mac with sudden animation, then stopped abruptly to bite
his lips, as if he had nearly said too much.
“Your what?” asked Rose curiously, for he neither looked nor
acted like himself.
“I forgot how long it takes to get a diploma,” he said, walking
away again.
“There will be one comfort if you go you’ll see Phebe and can tell
me all about her, for she is so modest, she doesn’t half do it. I shall
want to know how she gets on, if she is engaged to sing ballads in
the concerts they talk of for next winter. You will write, won’t
you??
“Oh, yes! No doubt of that,” and Mac laughed low to himself as he
stooped to look at the little Psyche on the mantelpiece. “What a
pretty thing it is!” he added soberly as he took it up.
“Be careful. Uncle gave it to me last New Year, and I’m very fond
of it. She is just lifting her lamp to see what Cupid is like, for she
hasn’t seen him yet,” said Rose, busy putting her worktable in
order.
“You ought to have a Cupid for her to look at. She has been
waiting patiently a whole year, with nothing but a bronze lizard in
sight,” said Mac with the half-shy, half-daring look which was so
new and puzzling.
“Cupid fled away as soon as she woke him, you know, and she had
a bad time of it. She must wait longer till she can find and keep
him.?
“Do you know she looks like you? Hair tied up in a knot, and a
spiritual sort of face. Don’t you see it?” asked Mac, turning the
graceful little figure toward her.
“Not a bit of it. I wonder whom I shall resemble next! I’ve been
compared to a Fra Angelico angel, Saint Agnes, and now ‘Syke,’ as
Annabel once called her.?
“You’d see what I mean, if you’d ever watched your own face when
you were listening to music, talking earnestly, or much moved,
then your soul gets into your eyes and you are like Psyche.?
“Tell me the next time you see me in a ‘soulful’ state, and I’ll look
in the glass, for I’d like to see if it is becoming,” said Rose merrily
as she sorted her gay worsteds.
“Your feet in the full-grown grasses,
Moved soft as a soft wind blows;
You passed me as April passes,
With a face made out of a rose,?
murmured Mac under his breath, thinking of the white figure going
up a green slope one summer day; then, as if chiding himself for
sentimentality, he set Psyche down with great care and began to
talk about a course of solid reading for the winter.
After that, Rose saw very little of him for several weeks, as he
seemed to be making up for lost time and was more odd and
absent than ever when he did appear.
As she became accustomed to the change in his external
appearance, she discovered that he was altering fast in other ways
and watched the “distinguished-looking gentleman” with much
interest, saying to herself, when she saw a new sort of dignity
about him alternating with an unusual restlessness of manner, and
now and then a touch of sentiment, “Genius is simmering, just as I
predicted.?
As the family were in mourning, there were no festivities on Rose’s
twenty-first birthday, though the boys had planned all sorts of
rejoicings. Everyone felt particularly tender toward their girl on
that day, remembering how “poor Charlie” had loved her, and they
tried to show it in the gifts and good wishes they sent her. She
found her sanctum all aglow with autumn leaves, and on her table
so many rare and pretty things, she quite forgot she was an heiress
and only felt how rich she was in loving friends.
One gift greatly pleased her, though she could not help smiling at