Another chapter was just finished, when the sound of a carriage warned them that Aunt Jane was about to depart. Before they could go to meet her, however, she appeared in the door-way looking like an unusually tall mummy in her waterproof, with her glasses shining like cat's eyes from the depths of the hood.
"Just as I thought! petting that child to death and letting her sit up late reading trash. I do hope you feel the weight of the responsibility you have taken upon yourself, Alec," she said, with a certain grim sort of satisfaction at seeing things go wrong.
"I think I have a very realizing sense of it, sister Jane," answered Dr. Alec, with a comical shrug of the shoulders and a glance at Rose's bright face.
"It is sad to see a great girl wasting these precious hours so. Now, my boys have studied all day, and Mac is still at his books, I've no doubt, while you have not had a lesson since you came, I suspect."
"I have had five to-day, ma'am," was Rose's very unexpected answer.
"I'm glad to hear it; and what were they, pray?"
Rose looked very demure as she replied,—
"Navigation, geography, grammar, arithmetic, and keeping my temper."
"Queer lessons, I fancy; and what have you learned from this remarkable mixture, I should like to know?"
A naughty sparkle came into Rose's eyes as she answered, with a droll look at her uncle,—