Mr. Meredith was, as usual, lost in dreams when supper began that evening, but presently a name pierced his abstraction and brought him back to reality.  Faith was telling Una of her meeting with Rosemary.

“She is just lovely, I think,” said Faith.  “Just as nice as Mrs. Blythe—­but different.  I felt as if I wanted to hug her.  She did hug me—­such a nice, velvety hug.  And she called me ‘dearest.’  It thrilled me.  I could tell her anything.”

“So you liked Miss West, Faith?” Mr. Meredith asked, with a rather odd intonation.

“I love her,” cried Faith.

“Ah!” said Mr. Meredith.  “Ah!”

CHAPTER XXI.  THE IMPOSSIBLE WORD

John Meredith walked meditatively through the clear crispness of a winter night in Rainbow Valley.  The hills beyond glistened with the chill splendid lustre of moonlight on snow.  Every little fir tree in the long valley sang its own wild song to the harp of wind and frost.  His children and the Blythe lads and lasses were coasting down the eastern slope and whizzing over the glassy pond.  They were having a glorious time and their gay voices and gayer laughter echoed up and down the valley, dying away in elfin cadences among the trees.  On the right the lights of Ingleside gleamed through the maple grove with the genial lure and invitation which seems always to glow in the beacons of a home where we know there is love and good-cheer and a welcome for all kin, whether of flesh or spirit.  Mr. Meredith liked very well on occasion to spend an evening arguing with the doctor by the drift wood fire, where the famous china dogs of Ingleside kept ceaseless watch and ward, as became deities of the hearth, but to-night he did not look that way.  Far on the western hill gleamed a paler but more alluring star.  Mr. Meredith was on his way to see Rosemary West, and he meant to tell her something which had been slowly blossoming in his heart since their first meeting and had sprung into full flower on the evening when Faith had so warmly voiced her admiration for Rosemary.

He had come to realize that he had learned to care for Rosemary.  Not as he had cared for Cecilia, of course.  That was entirely different.  That love of romance and dream and glamour could never, he thought, return.  But Rosemary was beautiful and sweet and dear—­very dear.  She was the best of companions.  He was happier in her company than he had ever expected to be again.  She would be an ideal mistress for his home, a good mother to his children.