“Really, I do not understand you.”

“Oh, never mind; I am an old woman, and I am in my dotage.  For all that, perhaps you will allow me two words alone with my daughter.”

“I retire, madame,” and he disappeared with a bow to her, and an anxious look at Rose.  She did not need this; she clenched her teeth, and braced herself up to stand a severe interrogatory.

Mother and daughter looked at one another, as if to measure forces, and then, instead of questioning her as she had intended, the baroness sank back in her chair and wept aloud.  Rose was all unprepared for this.  She almost screamed in a voice of agony, “O mamma! mamma!  O God! kill me where I stand for making my mother weep!”

“My girl,” said the baroness in a broken voice, and with the most touching dignity, “may you never know what a mother feels who finds herself shut out from her daughters’ hearts.  Sometimes I think it is my fault; I was born in a severer age.  A mother nowadays seems to be a sort of elder sister.  In my day she was something more.  Yet I loved my mother as well, or better than I did my sisters.  But it is not so with those I have borne in my bosom, and nursed upon my knee.”

At this Rose flung herself, sobbing and screaming, at her mother’s knees.  The baroness was alarmed.  “Come, dearest, don’t cry like that.  It is not too late to take your poor old mother into your confidence.  What is this mystery? and why this sorrow?  How comes it I intercept at every instant glances that were not intended for me?  Why is the very air loaded with signals and secrecy? (Rose replied only by sobs.) Is some deceit going on? (Rose sobbed.) Am I to have no reply but these sullen sobs? will you really tell me nothing?”

“I’ve nothing to tell,” sobbed Rose.

“Well, then, will you do something for me?”

Such a proposal was not only a relief, but a delight to the deceiving but loving daughter.  She started up crying, “Oh, yes, mamma; anything, everything.  Oh, thank you!” In the ardor of her gratitude, she wanted to kiss her mother; but the baroness declined the embrace politely, and said, coldly and bitterly, “I shall not ask much; I should not venture now to draw largely on your affection; it’s only to write a few lines for me.”

Rose got paper and ink with great alacrity, and sat down all beaming, pen in hand.

The baroness dictated the letter slowly, with an eye gimleting her daughter all the time.

“Dear—­Monsieur—­Riviere.”

The pen fell from Rose’s hand, and she turned red and then pale.

“What! write to him?”

“Not in your own name; in mine.  But perhaps you prefer to give me the trouble.”

“Cruel! cruel!” sighed Rose, and wrote the words as requested.

The baroness dictated again,—­

“Oblige me by coming here at your very earliest convenience.”

“But, mamma, if he is in Normandy,” remonstrated Rose, fighting every inch of the ground.