The eyes of the two women met defiantly.  Miss Rosetta’s face wore an air of triumph, chastened by a remembrance of the funeral that afternoon.  Mrs. Wheeler’s face, except for eyes, was as expressionless as it usually was.  Unlike the tall, fair, fat Miss Rosetta, Mrs. Wheeler was small and dark and thin, with an eager, careworn face.

“How is Jane?” she said abruptly, breaking the silence of ten years in saying it.

“Jane is dead and buried, poor thing,” said Miss Rosetta calmly.  “I am taking her baby, little Camilla Jane, home with me.”

“The baby belongs to me,” cried Mrs. Wheeler passionately.  “Jane wrote to me about her.  Jane meant that I should have her.  I’ve come for her.”

“You’ll go back without her then,” said Miss Rosetta, serene in the possession that is nine points of the law.  “The child is mine, and she is going to stay mine.  You can make up your mind to that, Charlotte Wheeler.  A woman who eloped to get married isn’t fit to be trusted with a baby, anyhow.  Jacob Wheeler—­”

But Mrs. Wheeler had rushed past into the house.  Miss Rosetta composedly stepped into the cab and drove to the station.  She fairly bridled with triumph; and underneath the triumph ran a queer undercurrent of satisfaction over the fact that Charlotte had spoken to her at last.  Miss Rosetta would not look at this satisfaction, or give it a name, but it was there.

Miss Rosetta arrived safely back in Avonlea with Camilla Jane and within ten hours everybody in the settlement knew the whole story, and every woman who could stand on her feet had been up to the Ellis cottage to see the baby.  Mrs. Wheeler arrived home twenty-four hours later, and silently betook herself to her farm.  When her Avonlea neighbors sympathized with her in her disappointment, she said nothing, but looked all the more darkly determined.  Also, a week later, Mr. William J. Blair, the Carmody storekeeper, had an odd tale to tell.  Mrs. Wheeler had come to the store and bought a lot of fine flannel and muslin and valenciennes.  Now, what in the name of time, did Mrs. Wheeler want with such stuff?  Mr. William J. Blair couldn’t make head or tail of it, and it worried him.  Mr. Blair was so accustomed to know what everybody bought anything for that such a mystery quite upset him.

Miss Rosetta had exulted in the possession of little Camilla Jane for a month, and had been so happy that she had almost given up inveighing against Charlotte.  Her conversations, instead of tending always to Jacob Wheeler, now ran Camilla Janeward; and this, folks thought, was an improvement.

One afternoon, Miss Rosetta, leaving Camilla Jane snugly sleeping in her cradle in the kitchen, had slipped down to the bottom of the garden to pick her currants.  The house was hidden from her sight by the copse of cherry trees, but she had left the kitchen window open, so that she could hear the baby if it awakened and cried.  Miss Rosetta sang happily as she picked her currants.  For the first time since Charlotte had married Jacob Wheeler Miss Rosetta felt really happy—­so happy that at there was no room in her heart for bitterness.  In fancy she looked forward to the coming years, and saw Camilla Jane growing up into girlhood, fair and lovable.