Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott

“I want a pen for marking can you make me one, Uncle?” she

asked, popping her head in to be sure he was alone.

“Yes, my dear,” answered a voice so like the doctor’s that she

entered without delay.

But before she had taken three steps she stopped, looking rather

annoyed, for the head that rose from behind the tall desk was not

rough and gray, but brown and smooth, and Mac, not Uncle Alec,

sat there writing. Late experience had taught her that she had

nothing to fear from a t€te-…-t€te and, having with difficulty taken

a resolution, she did not like to fail of carrying it out.

“Don’t get up, I won’t trouble you if you are busy, there is no

hurry,” she said, not quite sure whether it were wiser to stay or run

away.

Mac settled the point by taking the pen out of her hand and

beginning to cut it, as quietly as Nicholas did on that “thrilling”

occasion. Perhaps he was thinking of that, for he smiled as he

asked, “Hard or soft??

Rose evidently had forgotten that the family of Squeers ever

existed, for she answered: “Hard, please,” in a voice to match. “I’m

glad to see you doing that,” she added, taking courage from his

composure and going as straight to her point as could be expected

of a woman.

“And I am very glad to do it.?

“I don’t mean making pens, but the romance I advised,” and she

touched the closely written page before him, looking as if she

would like to read it.

“That is my abstract on a lecture on the circulation of the blood,”

he answered, kindly turning it so that she could see. “I don’t write

romances I’m living one,” and he glanced up with the happy,

hopeful expression which always made her feel as if he was

heaping coals of fire on her head.

“I wish you wouldn’t look at me in that way it fidgets me,” she said

a little petulantly, for she had been out riding, and knew that she

did not present a “spiritual” appearance after the frosty air had

reddened nose as well as cheeks.

“I’ll try to remember. It does itself before I know it. Perhaps this

may mend matters.” And, taking out the blue glasses he sometimes

wore in the wind, he gravely put them on.

Rose could not help laughing, but his obedience only aggravated

her, for she knew he could observe her all the better behind his

ugly screen.

“No, it won’t they are not becoming, and I don’t want to look blue

when I do not feel so,” she said, finding it impossible to guess

what he would do next or to help enjoying his peculiarities.

“But you don’t to me, for in spite of the goggles everything is

rose-colored now.” And he pocketed the glasses without a murmur

at the charming inconsistency of his idol.

“Really, Mac, I’m tired of this nonsense, it worries me and wastes

your time.?

“Never worked harder. But does it really trouble you to know I

love you?” he asked anxiously.

“Don’t you see how cross it makes me?” And she walked away,

feeling that things were not going as she intended to have them at

all.

“I don’t mind the thorns if I get the rose at last, and I still hope I

may, some ten years hence,” said this persistent suitor, quite

undaunted by the prospect of a “long wait.?

“I think it is rather hard to be loved whether I like it or not,”

objected Rose, at a loss how to make any headway against such

indomitable hopefulness.

“But you can’t help it, nor can I so I must go on doing it with all

my heart till you marry, and then well, then I’m afraid I may hate

somebody instead,” and Mac spoilt the pen by an involuntary slash

of his knife.

“Please don’t, Mac!?

“Do which, love or hate??

“Don’t do either go and care for someone else; there are plenty of

nice girls who will be glad to make you happy,” said Rose, intent

upon ending her disquiet in some way.

“That is too easy. I enjoy working for my blessings, and the harder

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