Part 77

"Never mind them. You've considered them all your life, now it's your turn."

"It doesn't seem that I deserve it," whispered Rosemary, with touching humility. "I've never been happy, except for a little while this Spring, and now----."

"And now," he said, taking her into his arms again, "you're going to be happy all the rest of your life, if I can make you so. If I don't you'll tell me, won't you?"

"I can't promise," she murmured, shyly, to his coat sleeve. "I must go now, it's getting late."

"Not until you've told me when you'll marry me. To-morrow?"

"Oh, no!" cried Rosemary. "Not to-morrow."

"Why not?"

"It's--it's too soon."

"In a week, then?"

"I--I don't know. I'll see."

"Make it very soon, my dear, will you?"

"Yes--just as soon as I can."

"Is that a promise?"

"Yes--a promise."

"Then kiss me."

The white fire burned in Rosemary's blood; her heart beat hard with rapturous pain. Upon the desert wastes that stretched endlessly before her, Spring had come with the old, immortal beauty, and more than mortal joy. Half afraid of her own ecstasy, she broke away from him and ran home.

XXIV

The Minister's Call

"Rosemary!"

Grandmother called imperiously, but there was no answer. "Rosemary!" she cried, shrilly.

"She ain't here, Ma," said Matilda. "I reckon she's gone out somewheres."

"Did you ever see the beat of it? She's getting high and mighty all of a sudden. This makes twice lately that she's gone out without even tellin' us, let alone askin' whether she could go or not. Just wait till she comes back."

Matilda laughed in her most aggravating manner. "I reckon we'll have to wait," she retorted, "as long as we don't know where she's gone or when she's comin' back."

"Just wait," repeated Grandmother, ominously. "I'll tell her a thing or two. You just see if I don't!"

The fires of her wrath smouldered dully, ready to blaze forth at any moment. Matilda waited with the same sort of pleasurable excitement which impels a child to wait under the open window of a house in which there is good reason to believe that an erring playmate is about to receive punishment.

"What's she been doin' all day?" Grandmother demanded.

"Nothin' more than usual, I guess," Matilda replied. "She did up the work this morning and got dinner, and washed the dishes and went to the store, and when she come back, she was up in the attic for a spell, and then she went out without sayin' where she was goin'."

"In the attic? What was she doin' in the attic?"