After a while Rosalind spoke:  “Uncle Allan, do you know Miss Celia Fair?”

“I used to.”

Silence again.

“I like her very much.  I think she is sweet, and she bears hard things bravely.  Belle says, since her father died they haven’t any money, so Miss Celia works, and the boys are troublesome, and her mother is ill a great deal.”

Another silence.

“Uncle Allan, was it any harm for me to know her?  Belle said there was a quarrel, and Aunt Genevieve said, ‘We have nothing to do with the Fairs.’”

As he flicked the ash from his cigar, Allan smiled at Rosalind’s unconscious imitation of Genevieve’s tone.

“I see no reason why you should take up other people’s quarrels,” he said gravely.

Then Rosalind told him of her first meeting with Celia, and the incident of the rose.  “But I think now I must have been mistaken,” she added.

“Perhaps,” said Allan, and again he smiled to himself in the twilight, so vividly did the story recall the occasional passionate outbursts of the child Celia, usually so gentle, so timidly reserved.

That strange letter of hers had puzzled while it hurt.  Far away from the scene of the trouble, he could not understand the bitterness of the strife.  That for a village quarrel—­some unkind words, perhaps—­she could break the bond between them—­was this the Celia he thought he knew so well?

The wound had rankled, but after a time he told himself it was for the best.  Travel and study had broadened and matured him, and he could smile now as he recognized, what was unsuspected at the time, that his mother had planned these years of absence in the determination to cure him of a boyish fancy which her eyes had been keen enough to detect.

And yet—­his thought would dwell upon her as she stood on the step, her arm around Belle, the laughter fading from her face.  Not the little schoolgirl, but a woman, gracious and tender.

Rosalind danced away to join Maurice and Katherine, whose humble penitence had restored her to favor; and over the hedge came the sound of their voices singing an old tune.  On the still night air, in their clear treble, the words carried distinctly:—­

    “Should auld acquaintance be forgot?”—­

CHAPTER TWENTIETH.

The spinet.

“Thou art not for the fashion of these times.”

“Where are you going to put it, Celia?” asked Mrs. Fair.

“In Saint Cecilia’s room, I suppose,” her daughter replied.  Her father had given this name to the sitting room which was her own special property, and in which she would have nothing that was not associated in some way with her great-grandmother.

“I don’t believe you ever enter it now,” Mrs. Fair continued discontentedly.

“The spinet won’t mind that; it is used to being alone,” Celia answered cheerfully, standing before the mirror, fastening an oak leaf on her dress.  It reminded her that even if her heart was heavy and her life full of difficulties, she could still be courageous.