"I'd rather had a jar of flowers, though that would not have lasted," I added as an afterthought.
"And you do not like the story?"
"I think Rosamond was a foolish girl."
"So her mother thought, and she made her suffer for it—learn by experience, as we say."
Mr. Harris laughed heartily.
"What else did you do when you were a little girl?" I asked with some curiosity. It seems strange to one in childhood that a grown-up woman could ever have been a little girl.
She had lived in Philadelphia and been one of quite a large family of plain Methodist people, almost as strict as Quakers. She had gone to Western New York with a married sister and had met Mr. Chadwick there and married him, and after they had moved to Chicago her brother Abner had come out. Most of the older members of the family were dead. Her sister lived at Ithaca now and had quite a large family, with some grandchildren.
I was wonderfully interested in these reminiscences; indeed, I was quite captivated by Mrs. Chadwick. She was very different from Mrs. Hayne, and I wondered if it was not disloyal to like her so well. I understood afterward that it was the difference made by education and leisure.
It was a very pleasant evening and gave me some new ideas. Mr. Harris brought me home. Father had come back and was sitting on the doorstep smoking his pipe.
"I was wondering if I had lost my little girl!" he exclaimed with a short half laugh. "But I guess I should have known where to look for her."