Sylvia groped her way to the mantel-shelf, found the china match-box, and struck a match.  Then she lit the lamp on the bureau and looked at the girl.  Rose held her face a little averted.  The lighting of the room had blotted out for her the soft indeterminateness of the summer night outside, and she was a little afraid to look at Sylvia with the glare of the lamp full upon her face.

“You’ll get cold setting there,” said Sylvia; “besides, folks can look right in.  Get up and I’ll unhook your dress.”

Rose got up.  Sylvia lowered the white window-shade and Rose stood about for her gown to be unfastened.  She still kept her face away from the older woman.  Sylvia unfastened the muslin bodice.  She looked fondly at the soft, girlish neck when it was exposed.  Her lips fairly tingled to kiss it, but she put the impulse sternly from her.

“What were you and Mr. Allen talking about so long down in the orchard?” said she.

“A good many things—­ever so many things,” said Rose, evasively.

Sylvia saw the lovely, slender neck grow crimson.  She turned the girl around with a sudden twist at the shoulders, and saw the face flushing sweetly under its mist of hair.  She saw the pouting lips and the downcast eyes.

“Why don’t you look at me?” she said, in a hard whisper.

Rose remained motionless.

“Look at me.”

Rose raised her eyelids, gave one glance at Sylvia, then she dropped them again.  She was all one soft, rosy flush.  She smiled a smile which she could not control—­a smile of ecstasy.

Sylvia turned deadly pale.  She gasped, and held the girl from her, looking at her pitilessly.  “You don’t mean it?” she exclaimed.

Then Rose spoke with a sudden burst of emotion.  “Oh, Aunt Sylvia,” she said, “I thought I wouldn’t tell you to-night.  I made him promise not to tell to-night, because I was afraid you wouldn’t like it, but I’ve got to.  I don’t feel right to go to bed and not let you know.”

“Then it’s so?”

Rose gave her a glance of ineffable happiness and appeal for sympathy.

“You and him are planning to get married?”

“Not for a year; not for a whole year.  He’s absurdly proud because he’s poor, and he wants to make sure that he can earn more than his teacher’s salary.  Not for a whole year.”

“You and him are planning to get married?”

“I wasn’t sure till this afternoon,” Rose whispered.  She put her arms around Sylvia, and tried to nestle against her flat bosom with a cuddling movement of her head, like a baby.  “I wasn’t sure,” she whispered, “but he—­told me, and—­now I am sure.”

Then Rose wept a little, softly, against Sylvia’s thin breast.  Sylvia stood like a stone.  “Haven’t you had all you wanted here?” she asked.

“Oh, Aunt Sylvia, you know I have.  You’ve been so good to me.”

“I had got my plans made to put in a bath-room,” said Sylvia.  “I’ve got the carpenters engaged, and the plumber.  They are going to begin next week.”