Mr Stirling touched his hat to his young lady.
“I shall be proud to show the flowers to Miss Rose, and I shall have the honour of making her a bouquet soon.” The young lady laughed.
“You are to be a favourite. Is your name Rose,” added she, lingering by the gate.
“Yes, Rose Elliott. I am the youngest. We all live over there, my brothers, and Graeme and I. It would be a dreary place, if it were not for the glimpse we get of your garden. Look, there is Nelly looking for me. I am afraid I have hindered Arthur. Thank you very much, and good-bye.”
Rose shyly put forth her hand. The young lady took it in both hers, and drawing her within the gate again, kissed her softly, and let her go.
“Stirling,” said she, as she turned toward the house, “how did you know the young lady’s name is Rose? is she a friend of yours? Do you know her?”
“I know her face, that is all I have seen her for hours together, looking in on the garden from that upper window. And whiles she looks through the gate. I heard her brothers calling her Rose. She’s a bonny lassie, and kens a flower when she sees it.”
That night, Nelly was startled into a momentary forgetfulness of her thick shoes, and her good manners, and came rushing into Graeme’s room, where they were all sitting after tea, bearing a bouquet, which a man, “maybe a gentleman,” Nelly seemed in doubt, had sent in with his compliments to Miss Rose Elliott. A bouquet! it would have won the prize at any floral exhibition in the land, and never after that, while the autumn frosts spared them, were they without flowers. Even when the autumn beauties hung shrivelled and black on their stems, and afterwards, when the snows of winter lay many feet above the pretty garden beds, many a rare hot-house blossom brightened the little parlour, where by that time Graeme was able to appear.
“For,” said Mr Stirling, to the admiring Nelly, “such were Miss Elphinstone’s directions before she went away, and besides, directions or no directions, the flowers are well bestowed on folk that take real pleasure in their beauty.”
The autumn and winter passed pleasantly away. As Graeme grew strong, she grew content. The children were well and happy, and Arthur’s business was prospering in a wonderful way, and all anxiety about ways and means, might be put aside for the present. They often heard from Norman, and from their friends in Merleville, and Graeme felt that with so much to make her thankful and happy, it would be ungrateful indeed to be otherwise.