Once Mrs. Howland thought to shade the windows with the Venetian blinds which hung in the parlor below; but they shut out so much sunlight, and made the room so gloomy, that she carried them back, substituting in their place plain white muslin curtains.  The best rocking chair, and the old-fashioned carved mirror, were brought up from the parlor; and then when all was done, Mrs. Howland gave a sigh of satisfaction that it was so well done, and closed the room until Rose should arrive.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

GLENWOOD.

Through the rich crimson curtains which shaded Rose Lincoln’s sleeping room, the golden beams of a warm March sun wore stealing, lighting up the thin features of the sick girl with a glow so nearly resembling health, that Jenny, when she came to wish her sister good morning, started with surprise at seeing her look so well.

“Why, Rose, you are better,” said she, kissing the fair cheek on which the ray of sunlight was resting.

Rose had just awoke from her deep morning slumber, and now remembering that this was the day appointed for her dreaded journey to Glenwood, she burst into tears, wondering “why they would persist in dragging her from home.”

“It’s only a pretence to get me away, I know,” said she, “and you may as well confess it at once.  You are tired of waiting upon me.”

Mr. Lincoln now came in to see his daughter, but all his attempts to soothe her were in vain.  She only replied, “Let me stay at home, here in this room, my own room;” adding more in anger than sorrow, “I’ll try to die as soon as I can; and be out of the way, if that’s what you want!”

“Oh, Rose, Rose! poor father don’t deserve that,” said Jenny, raising her hand as if to stay her sister’s thoughtless words while Mr Lincoln, laying his face upon the pillow so that his silvered locks mingled with the dark tresses of his child, wept bitterly,—­bitterly.

And still he could not tell her why she must leave her home.  He would rather bear her unjust reproaches, than have her know that they were beggars; for a sudden shock the physician said, might at any time end her life.  Thoroughly selfish as she was, Rose still loved her father dearly, and when she saw him thus moved, and knew that she was the cause, she repented of her hasty words, and laying her long white arm across his neck, asked forgiveness for what she had said.

“I will go to Glenwood,” said she; “but must I stay there long?”

“Not long, not long, my child,” was the father’s reply, and Jenny brushed away a tear as she too thought, “not long.”