“How sweet of you to remember your poor, lonely child and call her to your side!”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to be married, my dear?” was the practical question of the old lady.

“It was shyness on my part.  I dared not obtrude my poor affairs on your attention until you should notice me in some way,” she meekly replied, and then she gracefully slipped out of Mrs. Rockharrt’s embrace and went and folded Cora to her bosom, murmuring: 

“My own darling, how happy I am to meet you again!  How lovely you are, my sweet angel!”

“Oh, why did you not write to me that you were going to be married?  I should have so liked to have been your bridesmaid!” complained Cora.

“Sweetest sweet, if I had dreamed such honor and happiness were possible for me, I should have written and claimed them with pride and delight.  But I dared not, my darling!  I dared not.  I was but a poor governess, without any claims to your remembrance, and should not now be with you had not the dear lady, your grandmamma, kindly recalled her poor dependant to mind and brought me into her circle.”

“Oh, Rose, do not speak so!  I should hate to hear even the poorest maid in our house speak so.  You were never grandma’s dependant, or anybody’s dependant.  You were one of the noble army whom I honor more than I do all the monarchs on earth,” said Cora earnestly.

With remembrances and delightful chat the evening was wearing away, and it was time for the party to retire to rest.

Two days after this the Rockharrts, with Cora Haught and Mrs. Stillwater, left Baltimore for the North, en route for Canada and New Brunswick.

The party went first directly to Boston, where they stayed for a few days, to attend the commencement of the collegiate school at which Master Sylvanus Haught was preparing himself to become a candidate for admission to the military academy at West Point; but where, as yet, he had not distinguished himself by application to his studies.

On promising to do better, Sylvan was permitted to accompany his friends on their summer tour.

The party spent the season in traveling, and it was not until the 15th of September that they set out on their return South.  They reached Baltimore late in September, yet found the weather in that latitude still oppressively warm, and roomed at a hotel.

Here it had been tacitly understood from the first that Mrs. Stillwater was to remain, while the rest of the party should proceed on their journey West.

But the family despot had become so habituated to the incense hourly offered up to his egotism by Circe, that he felt her society to be essential to his contentment.  So he issued his commands to his wife to invite Mrs. Stillwater to accompany the family party to Rockhold for a long visit.

The old lady very willingly obeyed these orders, for she also desired the visit from the fascinator, whose presence kept the tyrant in a good humor and on his good behavior.  So she pressed Rose Stillwater to accompany them to their mountain home.