"I'll go and f-fetch her," she said, with her old-time change of front. "She may do you good."
When she came back with Rosemary, she saw what Carolina had seen in Rosemary's face--an illumination which no one could understand. It transfigured her.
Kate left the two girls together, and walked the floor in tempestuous anger all during Rosemary's stay in the house. Something in Carolina's eyes as they first met Rosemary's told Kate that the poison was already at work, and that Carolina was ripe for the hated new religion.
CHAPTER VIII.
MAN'S EXTREMITY
Rosemary approached the bed wherein lay the wreck of the girl she had often, when in the grasp of mortal mind, envied. A great wave of sympathy, not pity, swept over her, as she noted the weary eyes and the lines of dissatisfaction and despair around Carolina's mouth. With an impulse of love, she knelt at the bedside and took Carolina's little thin hand in both of hers.
"Oh, my dear Carol," she said, "I am so glad to see you. I heard of your accident while I was in California. I only got back yesterday."
"Would you have come to see me if I had not sent for you?" asked Carolina, childishly.
"I was coming to-day. Mother suggested it, and I was only too happy to put off everything of less importance and come at once."
"Your mother!" said Carolina, involuntarily. Then, as she saw Rosemary's face flush, she hastened to cover her awkward exclamation. "I did not know your mother knew me well enough to--to care!"