"Faugh!" ejaculated the elderly girl, as she closed the door behind her with a bang. "I can't abide such sickly slush as that. Rose is a fool, and that man isn't one whit better."
Then she flounced down the broad stairs and sought relief from her overwrought feelings in smelling-bottle and snuff.
Yes, dear reader, Miss Williams, dear old girl, was given to snuff, and she would soon cross the boundaries to that old maid's paradise where cats and parrots abounded.
With her it was indeed the sourest of sour grapes.
And Rose?
She felt that this was the happiest moment of her life, as she nestled against her lover's breast and realized that no harm had come to him after all.
"It was wholly a false report, August, but it made me miserable for some hours."
"Not wholly false," he said, as he toyed with a diamond ring that glittered on her finger. "I was thrown out and injured, but not very badly. I came here just as soon after the accident as possible to alleviate your fears."
"Oh, how good you are."
"This ring," he said, seeming to wish to avoid the subject of the accident. "A genuine diamond, is it not?"