“It has not been a subject of fear with me,” said Elizabeth.  “I haven’t thought about it.”

“Who comes to see you here? anybody?”

“No.  Who should come?” said Elizabeth sternly.  “Whom should I want to see?”

“Don’t you want to see anybody, ever?  I do.  I don’t like to be in a desert so.”

Elizabeth was silent, with a set of the lips that told of thoughts at work.

“Doesn’t Winthrop Landholm come here?”

“No!”

“I’m not used to it,” said Rose whimpering, —­ “I can’t live so.  It makes me feel dreadfully.”

“Whom do you want to see, Rose?” said Elizabeth, with an expression that ought to have reminded her companion whom she was dealing with.

“I don’t care who —­ any one.  It’s dreadful to live so, and see nothing but the leaves shaking and the river rolling and this great empty place.”

“Empty!” said Elizabeth, with again a quick glancing laugh.  “Well! —­ you are yourself yet!  But at any rate the leaves don’t shake much to-day.”

“They did last night,” said Rose.  “I was so frightened I didn’t know what to do, and with no man in the house either, good for anything —­ I didn’t sleep a wink till after one o’clock.”

“Was your sleep ever disturbed by anything of more importance than the wind?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Rose in tears.  “I think you’re very unkind! —­”

“What would you like me to do, Rose?”

“Let’s go away from here.”

“Where?”

“I don’t care —­ to Mannahatta.”

“What do you want to do in Mannahatta?”

“Why, nothing, —­ what everybody does —­ live like other people.  I shall die here.”

“Is the memory of the best friend you ever had, so little worth, Rose, that you are in a hurry to banish it your company already?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Rose, with one of her old pouts and then bursting into fresh weeping.  “I don’t know why one should be miserable any more than one can help.  I have been miserable enough, I am sure.  Oh Lizzie! —­ I think you’re very unkind! —­”

Elizabeth’s face was a study; for the fire in her eyes shone through water, and every feature was alive.  But her lips only moved to tremble.

“I won’t stay here!” said Rose.  “I’ll go away and do something.  I don’t care what I do.  I dare say there’s enough left for me to live upon; and I can do without Emma.  I can live somehow, if not quite as well as you do.”

“Hush, Rose, and keep a little sense along with you,” said Elizabeth.

“There must be enough left for me somehow,” Rose went on, sobbing.  “Nobody had any right to take my money.  It was mine.  Nobody else had a right to it.  It is mine.  I ought to have it.”

“Rose! —­”

Rose involuntarily looked up at the speaker who was standing before her, fire flashing from eye and lip, like the relations of Queen Gulnare in the fairy story.