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A Rose in June
Rose’s head was swimming, her heart throbbing in her ears and her throat. The girl was not equal to such a strain. To have the living and the dead both uniting against her—both appealing to her in the several names of love and duty against love—was more than she could bear. She had sunk into the nearest chair, unable to stand, and she no longer felt strong enough, even had her mother been willing to hear it, to make that confession which had been on her lips. At what seemed to be the extremity of human endurance, she suddenly saw one last resource in which she might still find safety, and grasped at it, scarcely aware what she did. “May I see Mr. Incledon myself if he comes?” she gasped, almost under her breath.
“Surely, dear,” said her mother, surprised; “of course that would be the best—if you are able for it, if you will think well before you decide, if you will promise to do nothing hastily. Oh, Rose! do not break my heart!”
“It is more likely to be my own that I will break,” said the girl, with a shadow of a smile passing over her face. “Mamma, will you be very kind, and say no more? I will think, think—everything that you say; but let me speak to him myself, if he comes.”
Mrs. Damerel looked at her very earnestly, half suspicious, half sympathetic. She went up to her softly and put her arms round her, and pressed the girl’s drooping head against her breast. “God bless you, my darling!” she said, with her eyes full of tears; and kissing her hastily, went out of the room, leaving Rose alone with her thoughts.
If I were to tell you what these thoughts were, and all the confusion of them, I should require a year to do it. Rose had no heart to stand up and fight for herself all alone against the world. Her young frame ached and trembled from head to foot with the unwonted strain. If there had been indeed any one—any one—to struggle for; but how was she to stand alone and battle for herself? Everything combined against her; every motive, every influence. She sat in a vague trance of pain, and, instead of thinking over what had been said, only saw visions gleaming before her of the love which was a vision, nothing more, and which she was called upon to resign. A vision—that was all; a dream, perhaps, without any foundation. It seemed to disperse like a mist, as the world melted and dissolved around her—the world which she had known—showing a new world, a dreamy, undiscovered country, forming out of darker vapors before her. She sat thus till the stir of the children in the house warned her that they had come in from their daily walk to the early dinner. She listened to their voices and noisy steps and laughter with the strangest feeling that she was herself a dreamer, having nothing in common with the fresh, real life where all the voices rang out so clearly, where people said what they meant with spontaneous outcries and laughter, and there was no concealed meaning and nothing beneath the sunny surface; but when she heard her mother’s softer tones speaking to the children, Rose got up hurriedly, and fled to the shelter of her room. If anything more were said to her she thought she must die. Happily Mrs. Damerel did not know that it was her voice, and not the noise of the children, which was too much for poor Rose’s over-strained nerves. She sent word by Agatha that Rose must lie down for an hour and try to rest; and that quiet was the best thing for her headache, which, of course, was the plea the girl put forth to excuse her flight and seclusion. Agatha, for her part, was very sorry and distressed that Rose should miss her dinner, and wanted much to bring something up-stairs for her, which was at once the kindest and most practical suggestion of all.
The bustle of dinner was all over and the house still again in the dreary afternoon quiet, when Agatha, once more, with many precautions, stole into the room. “Are you awake?” she said; “I hope your head is better. Mr. Incledon is in the drawing-room, and mamma says, please, if you are better will you go down, for she is busy; and you are to thank him for the grapes and for the flowers. What does Mr. Incledon want, coming so often? He was here only yesterday, and sat for hours with mamma. Oh! what a ghost you look, Rose! Shall I bring you some tea?”
“It is too early for tea. Never mind; my head is better.”
“But you have had no dinner,” said practical Agatha; “it is not much wonder that you are pale.”
Rose did not know what she answered, or if she said anything. Her head seemed to swim more than ever. Not only was it all true about Mr. Incledon, but she was going to talk to him, to decide her own fate finally one way or other. What a good thing that the drawing-room was so dark in the afternoon that he could not remark how woe-begone she looked, how miserable and pale!
He got up when she came in, and went up to her eagerly, putting out his hands. I suppose he took her appearance as a proof that his suit was progressing well; and, indeed, he had come to-day with the determination to see Rose, whatever might happen. He took her hand into both of his, and for one second pressed it fervently and close. “It is very kind of you to see me. How can I thank you for giving me this opportunity?” he said.
“Oh, no! not kind; I wished it,” said Rose, breathlessly, withdrawing her hand as hastily as he had taken it; and then, fearing her strength, she sat down in the nearest chair, and said, falteringly, “Mr. Incledon, I wanted very much to speak to you myself.”
“And I, too,” he said—her simplicity and eagerness thus opened the way for him and saved him all embarrassment—“I, too, was most anxious to see you. I did not venture to speak of this yesterday, when I met you. I was afraid to frighten and distress you; but I have wished ever since that I had dared”—
“Oh, please do not speak so!” she cried. In his presence Rose felt so young and childish, it seemed impossible to believe in the extraordinary change of positions which his words implied.
“But I must speak so. Miss Damerel, I am very conscious of my deficiencies by your side—of the disparity between us in point of age and in many other ways; you, so fresh and untouched by the world, I affected by it, as every man is more or less; but if you will commit your happiness to my hands, don’t think, because I am not so young as you, that I will watch over it less carefully—that it will be less precious in my eyes.”
“Ah! I was not thinking of my happiness,” said Rose; “I suppose I have no more right to be happy than other people—but oh! if you would let me speak to you! Mr. Incledon, oh! why should you want me? There are so many girls better, more like you, that would be glad. Oh! what is there in me? I am silly; I am not well educated, though you may think so. I am not clever enough to be a companion you would care for. I think it is because you don’t know.”
Mr. Incledon was so much taken by surprise that he could do nothing but laugh faintly at this strange address. “I was not thinking either of education or of wisdom, but of you,—only you,” he said.
“But you know so little about me; you think I must be nice because of papa; but, papa himself was never satisfied with me. I have not read very much. I know very little. I am not good for anywhere but home. Mr. Incledon, I am sure you are deceived in me. This is what I wanted to say. Mamma does not see it in the same light; but I feel sure that you are deceived, and take me for something very different from what I am,” said Rose, totally unconscious that every word she said made Mr. Incledon more and more sure that he had done the very thing he ought to have done, and that he was not deceived.
“Indeed, you mistake me altogether,” he said. “It is not merely because you are a piece of excellence—it is because I love you, Rose.”
“Love me! Do you love me?” she said, looking at him with wondering eyes; then drooping with a deep blush under his gaze—“but I—do not love you.”
“I did not expect it; it would have been too much to expect; but if you will let me love you, and show you how I love you, dear!” said Mr. Incledon, going up to her softly, with something of the tenderness of a father to a child, subduing the eagerness of a lover. “I don’t want to frighten you; I will not hurry nor tease; but some time you might learn to love me.”
“That is what mamma says,” said Rose, with a heavy sigh.
Now this was scarcely flattering to a lover. Mr. Incledon felt for the moment as if he had received a downright and tolerably heavy blow; but he was in earnest, and prepared to meet with a rebuff or two. “She says truly,” he answered, with much gravity. “Rose,—may I call you Rose?—do not think I will persecute or pain you; only do not reject me hastily. What I have to say for myself is very simple. I love you—that is all; and I will put up with all a man may for the chance of winning you, when you know me better, to love me in return.”
These were almost the same words as those Mrs. Damerel had employed; but how differently they sounded; they had not touched Rose’s heart at all before; but they did now with a curious mixture of agitation and terror, and almost pleasure. She was sorry for him, more than she could have thought possible, and somehow felt more confidence in him, and freedom to tell him what was in her heart.
“Do not answer me now, unless you please,” said Mr. Incledon. “If you will give me the right to think your family mine, I know I can be of use to them. The boys would become my charge, and there is much that has been lost which I could make up had I the right to speak to your mother as a son. It is absurd, I know,” he said, with a half-smile; “I am about as old as she is; but all these are secondary questions. The main thing is—you. Dear Rose, dear child, you don’t know what love is”—
“Ah!” the girl looked up at him suddenly, her countenance changing. “Mr. Incledon, I have not said all to you that I wanted to say. Oh, do not ask me any more! Tell mamma that you have given it up! or I must tell you something that will break my heart.”
“I will not give it up so long as there is any hope,” he said; “tell me—what is it? I will do nothing to break your heart.”
She made a pause. It was hard to say it, and yet, perhaps, easier to him than it would be to face her mother and make this tremendous confession. She twisted her poor little fingers together in her bewilderment and misery, and fixed her eyes upon them as if their interlacing were the chief matter in hand. “Mr. Incledon,” she said, very low, “there was some one else—oh, how can I say it!—some one—whom I cared for—whom I can’t help thinking about.”
“Tell me,” said Mr. Incledon, bravely quenching in his own mind a not very amiable sentiment; for it seemed to him that if he could but secure her confidence all would be well. He took her hand with caressing gentleness, and spoke low, almost as low as she did. “Tell me, my darling; I am your friend, confide in me. Who was it? May I know?”
“I cannot tell you who it was,” said Rose, with her eyes still cast down, “because he has never said anything to me; perhaps he does not care for me; but this has happened: without his ever asking me, or perhaps wishing it, I cared for him. I know a girl should not do so, and that is why I cannot—cannot! But,” said Rose raising her head with more confidence, though still reluctant to meet his eye, “now that you know this you will not think of me any more, Mr. Incledon. I am so sorry if it makes you at all unhappy; but I am of very little consequence; you cannot be long unhappy about me.”
“Pardon me if I see it in quite a different light,” he said. “My mind is not at all changed. This is but a fancy. Surely a man who loves you, and says so, should be of more weight than one of whose feelings you know nothing.”
“I know about my own,” said Rose, with a little sigh; “and oh, don’t think, as mamma does, that I am selfish! It is not selfishness; it is because I know, if you saw into my heart, you would not ask me. Oh, Mr. Incledon, I would die for them all if I could! but how could I say one thing to you, and mean another? How could I let you be deceived?”
“Then, Rose, answer me truly; is your consideration solely for me?”
She gave him an alarmed, appealing look, but did not reply.
“I am willing to run the risk,” he said, with a smile, “if all your fear is for me; and I think you might run the risk too. The other is an imagination; I am real, very real,” he added, “very constant, very patient. So long as you do not refuse me absolutely, I will wait and hope.”
Poor Rose, all her little art was exhausted. She dared not, with her mother’s words ringing in her ears, and with all the consequences so clearly before her, refuse him absolutely, as he said. She had appealed to him to withdraw, and he would not withdraw. She looked at him as if he were the embodiment of fate, against which no man can strive.
“Mr. Incledon,” she said, gravely and calmly, “you would not marry any one who did not love you?”
“I will marry you, Rose, if you will have me, whether you love me or not,” he said; “I will wait for the love, and hope.”
“Oh, be kind!” she said, driven to her wits’ end. “You are free, you can do what you please, and there are so many girls in the world besides me. And I cannot do what I please,” she added, low, with a piteous tone, looking at him. Perhaps he did not hear these last words. He turned from her with I know not what mingling of love, and impatience, and wounded pride, and walked up and down the darkling room, making an effort to command himself. She thought she had moved him at last, and sat with her hands clasped together, expecting the words which would be deliverance to her. It was almost dark, and the firelight glimmered through the low room, and the dim green glimmer of the twilight crossed its ruddy rays, not more unlike than the two who thus stood so strangely opposed to each other. At last, Mr. Incledon returned to where Rose sat in the shadow, touched by neither one illumination nor the other, and eagerly watching him as he approached her through the uncertain gleams of the ruddy light.
“There is but one girl in the world for me,” he said, somewhat hoarsely. “I do not pretend to judge for any one but myself. So long as you do not reject me, I will hope.”
And thus their interview closed. When he had got over the disagreeable shock of encountering that indifference on the part of the woman he loved, which is the greatest blow that can be given to a man’s vanity, Mr. Incledon was not at all down-hearted about the result. He went away with half a dozen words to Mrs. Damerel, begging her not to press his suit, but to let the matter take its course. “All will go well if we are patient,” he said, with a composure which, perhaps, surprised her; for women are apt to prefer the hot-headed in such points, and Mrs. Damerel did not reflect that, having waited so long, it was not so hard on the middle-aged lover to wait a little longer. But his forbearance at least was of immediate service to Rose, who was allowed time to recover herself after her agitation, and had no more exciting appeals addressed to her for some time. But Mr. Incledon went and came, and a soft, continued pressure, which no one could take decided objection to, began to make itself felt.
CHAPTER XII
Mr. Incledon went and came; he did not accept his dismissal, nor, indeed, had any dismissal been given to him. A young lover, like Edward Wodehouse, would have been at once crushed and rendered furious by the appeal Rose had made so ineffectually to the man of experience who knew what he was about. If she was worth having at all, she was worth a struggle; and Mr. Incledon, in the calm exercise of his judgment, knew that at the last every good thing falls into the arms of the patient man who can wait. He had not much difficulty in penetrating the thin veil which she had cast over the “some one” for whom she cared, but who, so far as she knew, did not care for her. It could be but one person, and the elder lover was glad beyond description to know that his rival had not spoken, and that he was absent and likely to be absent. Edward Wodehouse being thus disposed of, there was no one else in Mr. Incledon’s way, and with but a little patience he was sure to win.
As for Rose, though she felt that her appeal had been unsuccessful, she too was less discouraged by it than she could have herself supposed. In the first place she was let alone; nothing was pressed upon her; she had time allowed her to calm down, and with time everything was possible. Some miracle would happen to save her; or, if not a miracle, some ordinary turn of affairs would take the shape of miracle, and answer the same purpose. What is Providence, but a divine agency to get us out of trouble, to restore happiness, to make things pleasant for us? so, at least, one thinks when one is young; older, we begin to learn that Providence has to watch over many whose interests are counter to ours as well as our own; but at twenty, all that is good and necessary in life seems always on our side, and there seems no choice for Heaven but to clear the obstacles out of our way. Something would happen, and all would be well again; and Rose’s benevolent fancy even exercised itself in finding for “poor Mr. Incledon” some one who would suit him better than herself. He was very wary, very judicious, in his treatment of her. He ignored that one scene when he had refused to give up his proposal, and conducted himself for some time as if he had sincerely given up his proposal, and was no more than the family friend, the most kind and sympathizing of neighbors. It was only by the slowest degrees that Rose found out that he had given up nothing, that his constant visits and constant attentions were so many meshes of the net in which her simple feet were being caught. For the first few weeks, as I have said, she was relieved altogether from everything that looked like persecution. She heard of him, indeed, constantly, but only in the pleasantest way. Fresh flowers came, filling the dim old rooms with brightness; and the gardener from Whitton came to look after the flowers and to suggest to Mrs. Damerel improvements in her garden, and how to turn the hall, which was large in proportion to the house, into a kind of conservatory; and baskets of fruit came, over which the children rejoiced; and Mr. Incledon himself came, and talked to Mrs. Damerel and played with them, and left books, new books, all fragrant from the printing, of which he sometimes asked Rose’s opinion casually. None of all these good things was for her, and yet she had the unexpressed consciousness, which was pleasant enough so long as no one else remarked it and no recompense was asked, that but for her those pleasant additions to the family life would not have been. Then it was extraordinary how often he would meet them by accident in their walks, and how much trouble he would take to adapt his conversation to theirs, finding out (but this Rose did not discover till long after) all her tastes and likings. I suppose that having once made up his mind to take so much trouble, the pursuit of this shy creature, who would only betray what was in her by intervals, who shut herself up like the mimosa whenever she was too boldly touched, but who opened secretly with an almost childlike confidence when her fears were lulled to rest, became more interesting to Mr. Incledon than a more ordinary wooing, with a straightforward “yes” to his proposal at the end of it, would have been. His vanity got many wounds both by Rose’s unconsciousness and by her shrinking; but he pursued his plan undaunted by either, having made up his mind to win her and no other; and the more difficult the fight was, the more triumphant would be the success.
This state of affairs lasted for some time; indeed, everything went on quietly, with no apparent break in the gentle monotony of existence at the White House, until the spring was so far advanced as to have pranked itself out in a flood of primroses. It was something quite insignificant and incidental which for the first time reawakened Rose’s fears. He had looked at her with something in his eyes which betrayed him, or some word had dropped from his lips which startled her; but the first direct attack upon her peace of mind did not come from Mr. Incledon. It came from two ladies on the Green, one of whom at least was very innocent of evil meaning. Rose was walking with her mother on an April afternoon, when they met Mrs. Wodehouse and Mrs. Musgrove, likewise taking their afternoon walk. Mrs. Musgrove was a very quiet person, who interfered with nobody, yet who was mixed up with everything that went on on the Green, by right of being the most sympathetic of souls, ready to hear everybody’s grievance and to help in everybody’s trouble. Mrs. Wodehouse struck straight across the Green to meet Mrs. Damerel and Rose, when she saw them, so that it was by no ordinary chance meeting, but an encounter sought eagerly on one side at least, that this revelation came. Mrs. Wodehouse was full of her subject, vibrating, with it to the very flowers on her bonnet, which thrilled and nodded against the blue distance like a soldier’s plumes. She came forward with a forced exuberance of cordiality, holding out both her hands.
“Now tell me!” she said; “may we congratulate you? Is the embargo removed? Quantities of people have assured me that we need not hold our tongues any longer, but that it is all settled at last.”
“What is all settled at last?” asked Mrs. Damerel, with sudden stiffness and coldness. “I beg your pardon, but I really don’t in the least know what you mean.”
“I said I was afraid you were too hasty,” said Mrs. Musgrove.
“Well, if one can’t believe the evidence of one’s senses, what is one to believe?” cried Mrs. Wodehouse. “It is not kind, Rose, to keep all your old friends so long in suspense. Of course, it is very easy to see on which side the hesitation is; and I am sure I am very sorry if I have been premature.”
“You are more than premature,” said Mrs. Damerel with a little laugh, and an uneasy color on her cheek, “for you are speaking a language neither Rose nor I understand. I hope, Mrs. Wodehouse, you have good news from your son.”
“Oh, very good news indeed!” said the mother, whose indignation on her son’s behalf made the rose on her bonnet quiver: and then there were a few further interchanges, of volleys in the shape of questions and answers of the most civil description, and the ladies shook hands and parted. Rose had been struck dumb altogether by the dialogue, in which, trembling and speechless, she had taken no part. When they had gone on for a few yards in silence, she broke down in her effort at self-restraint.
“Mamma, what does she mean?”
“Oh, Rose, do not drive me wild with your folly!” said Mrs. Damerel. “What could she mean but one thing? If you think for one moment, you will have no difficulty in understanding what she means.”
Rose woke up, as a sick man wakes after a narcotic, feverish and trembling. “I thought,” she said, slowly, her heart beginning to throb, and her head to ache in a moment—“I thought it was all given up.”
“How could you think anything so foolish? What symptom can you see of its having been given up? Has he ceased coming? Has he ceased trying to please you, ungrateful girl that you are? Indeed you go too far for ordinary patience; for it cannot be stupidity—you are not stupid,” said Mrs. Damerel, excitedly; “you have not even that excuse.”
“Oh, mamma, do not be angry!” said poor Rose; “I thought—it seemed so natural that, as he saw more of me, he would give it up. Why should he care for me? I am not like him, nor fit to be a great lady; he must see that.”
“This is false humility, and it is very ill timed,” said Mrs. Damerel. “Strange though it may seem, seeing more of you does not make him give it up; and if you are too simple or too foolish to see how much he is devoted to you, no one else is. Mrs. Wodehouse had a spiteful meaning, but she is not the first who has spoken to me. All our friends on the Green believe, like her, that everything is settled between you; that it is only some hesitation about—about our recent sorrow which keeps it from being announced.”
Rose turned upon her mother for the first time with reproach in her eyes. “You should have told me!” she said, with momentary passion; “you ought to have told me,—for how was I to know?”
“Rose, I will not allow such questions; you are not a fool nor a child. Did you think Mr. Incledon came for me? or Agatha, perhaps? He told you he would not give you up. You were warned what his object was—more than warned. Was I to defeat my own wishes by keeping you constantly on your guard? You knew what he wanted, and you have encouraged him and accepted his attentions.”
“I—encouraged him?”
“Whenever a girl permits, she encourages,” said Mrs. Damerel, with oracular solemnity. “In matters of this kind, Rose, if you do not refuse at once, you commit yourself, and sooner or later you must accept.”
“You never told me so before. Oh, mamma! how was I to know? you never said this to me before.”
“There are things that one knows by intuition,” said Mrs. Damerel; “and, Rose, you know what my opinion has been all along. You have no right to refuse. On the one side, there is everything that heart can desire; on the other, nothing but a foolish, childish disinclination. I don’t know if it goes so far as disinclination; you seem now to like him well enough.”
“Do you not know the difference?” said Rose, turning wistful eyes upon her mother. “Oh, mamma, you who ought to know so much better than I do! I like him very well—what does that matter?”
“It matters everything; liking is the first step to love. You can have no reason, absolutely no reason, for refusing him if you like him. Rose, oh, how foolish this is, and what a small, what a very small place there seems to be in your mind for the thought of duty! You tell us you are ready to die for us—which is absurd—and yet you cannot make up your mind to this!”
“It is different,” said Rose; “oh, it is different! Mamma, listen a moment; you are a great deal better than I am; you love us better than we love each other; you are never tired of doing things for us; whether you are well or whether you are ill it does not matter; you are always ready when the children want you. I am not blind,” said the girl, with tears. “I know all you do and all you put up with; but, mamma, you who are good, you who know how to deny yourself, would you do this?”
“Rose!”
“Would you do it?” cried Rose, excited and breathless, pursuing her advantage.
Mrs. Damerel was not old, nor was life quenched in her either by her years or her sorrows. Her face flushed, under her heavy widow’s veil, all over, with a violent overwhelming blush like a girl’s.
“Rose,” she said, passionately, “how dare you—how dare you put such a question to your mother? I do it!—either you are heartless altogether, or you are mad, and don’t know what you say.”
“Forgive, me mamma; but, oh, let me speak! There is nothing else so hard, nothing so disagreeable, but you would do it for us; but you would not do this. There is a difference, then? you do not deny it now?”
“You use a cruel argument,” said Mrs. Damerel, the blush still warm upon her matron cheek, “and it is not a true one. I am your father’s wife. I am your mother and Bertie’s, who are almost man and woman. All my life would be reversed, all my relations confused, if I were to make such a sacrifice; besides, it is impossible,” she said, suddenly; “I did not think that a child of mine would ever have so insulted me.”
“I do not mean it for insult, mamma. Oh, forgive me! I want you only to see the difference. It is not like anything else. You would do anything else, and so would I; but, oh, not this! You see it yourself—not this, mamma.”
“It is foolish to attempt to argue with you,” said Mrs. Damerel; and she hurried in, and up-stairs to her room, leaving Rose, not less excited, to follow. Rose had scarcely calculated upon the prodigious force of her own argument. She was half frightened by it, and half ashamed of having used it, yet to some extent triumphant in her success. There was quite a bank of flowers in the hall as she passed through—flowers which she stopped to look at and caress, with little touches of fondness as flower-lovers use, before she recollected that they were Mr. Incledon’s flowers. She took up a book which was on the hall table, and hurried on to avoid that contemplation, and then she remembered that it was Mr. Incledon’s book. She was just entering the drawing-room as she did so, and threw it down pettishly on a chair by the door; and, lo! Mr. Incledon himself rose, a tall shadow against the window, where he had been waiting for the ladies’ return.
“Mamma has gone up-stairs; I will call her,” said Rose, with confusion, turning away.
“Nay, never mind; it is a pity to disturb Mrs. Damerel, and it is long, very long, since you have allowed me a chance of talking to you.”
“Indeed, we see each other very often,” said Rose, falteringly.
“Yes, I see you in a crowd, protected by the children, or with your mother, who is my friend, but who cannot help me—I wanted to ask about the book you threw down so impatiently as you came in. Don’t you like it?” said Mr. Incledon, with a smile.
What a relief it was! She was so grateful to him for not making love to her, that I almost think she would have consented to marry him, had he asked her, before he left that evening. But he was very cautious and very wise, and, though he had come with no other intention, he was warned by the excitement in her looks, and stopped the very words on her lips, for which Rose, short-sighted, like all mortals, was very thankful to him, not knowing how much the distinct refusal, which it was in her heart to give, would have simplified all their affairs.
This, however, was at once the first and the last of Rose’s successes. When she saw traces of tears about her mother’s eyes, and how pale she was, her heart smote her, and she made abject submission of herself, and poured out her very soul in excuses, go that Mrs. Damerel, though vanquished for the moment, took higher ground after it. The mother, indeed, was so much shaken by the practical application of her doctrines, that she felt there was no longer time for the gradual undermining which was Mr. Incledon’s policy. Mrs. Damerel did not know what reply she could make if Rose repeated her novel and strenuous argument, and felt that now safety lay in as rapid a conclusion of the matter as possible; so that from this moment every day saw the closing of the net over poor Rose. The lover became more close in his attendance, the mother more urgent in her appeals; but so cleverly did he manage the matter that his society was always a relief to the girl when hard driven, and she gradually got to feel herself safer with him, which was a great deal in his favor. Everything, however, went against Rose. The ladies on the Green made gentle criticisms upon her, and called her a sly little puss. Some hoped she would not forget her humble friends when she came into her kingdom; some asked her what she meant by dragging her captive so long at her chariot wheels; and the captive himself, though a miracle of goodness, would cast pathetic looks at her, and make little speeches full of meaning. Rose began to feel herself like a creature at bay; wherever she turned she could see no way of escape; even sharp-eyed Agatha, in the wisdom of fifteen, turned against her.
