Mrs. Whittredge did not reply at once.  On her lap lay her granddaughter’s little volume of “As You Like It,” and she had been reading the words about the Forest.  It had a way of opening to that page.

“She is a peculiar, fanciful child, and quite old enough to know better.  Professor Sargent may be a brilliant man, but it seems to me he has filled the child’s head full of nonsense.  I can’t see what Patterson has been thinking of,” Genevieve continued.

“I am not inclined to find much fault with her.  I did not expect her to be perfect.  She seems naturally sweet and happy,” her mother replied.

“Losing by the way the sacred gift of happiness,” Mrs. Whittredge’s eyes went back to the book.  Surely happiness had slipped from her grasp, leaving nothing but regret.  It was sad to realize that her children found all their pleasure apart from her.  Somewhere she had failed, but pride told her it was fate; that sorrow and disappointment were the common lot, that gratitude was not to be looked for.

After her bitter disappointment in her oldest son she had been the more determined to have her way with Allan.  With what result?  The extended tour abroad, planned with a purpose just as his college course was ended, had weaned him completely from his home.  His interests were elsewhere, and although as joint executor with her of his father’s estate he was often in Friendship, his visits were usually brief.  Between herself and her daughter there was little sympathy.  Genevieve, calm and inflexible, had early declared her independence.  But more than all else put together was her haunting sorrow for her husband.  Words of Dr. Fair, spoken long ago in cruel bluntness, still rang in her ears:  “Madam, you are killing your husband by your obstinacy.”  Her mind dwelt with morbid persistency upon them.  Had the reconciliation with her son come too late?

At a time of utter weariness with herself she acceded to Patterson’s proposal to send his daughter to her.  Genevieve had expostulated, insisting she would be impossible, a child with no bringing up.  Rosalind had come, and even Genevieve had to admit, so far as manners and appearance were concerned, she was not impossible.

In the fair young face, with its serious eyes, in whose glance there was often a singular radiance, Mrs. Whittredge found something that touched her heart.  Her granddaughter had not the Whittredge beauty, she was nothing of a Whittredge, and yet—­One day she had taken up the miniature on Rosalind’s table, with a glance over her shoulder; and when she put it down and turned away, it was with the reluctant feeling that perhaps there had been some excuse for her son when he left father and mother and kindred and home for this young girl.

CHAPTER EIGHTH.

To meet Rosalind.

“Put you in your best array.”

Miss Betty Bishop lived in a small white house with brown trimmings, which she herself likened to a white cake with chocolate filling.  Everything about it was snug and neat and seemed to the observer a pleasant expression of that kindly, busy, cheery lady; but Miss Betty was in the habit of declaring it had taken her twenty years to get settled in those small, low-ceiled rooms, and that she didn’t feel quite in yet.