"I 'm a perfect goose, but--but--I believe I 'm getting just a little bit homesick for Mount Hunger, and I 'm not going to stay for Mrs. Fenlick's ball. I know mother needs me at home--I can just feel it in her letters, and I know I want--I want her."
"Don't blame you a bit, Rose,--but is n't this rather sudden? Any previous attacks?"
"No--and I know it seems dreadfully ungrateful to you and dear Mrs. Heath to say so, and it is n't that--I 'd love to be with just you two; but it's this dreadful feeling comes over me, and I know I ought to go."
"And go you shall, Rose," said the Doctor, emphatically, but oh! so kindly and understandingly. "Go back to all the dear ones there--and when you come again, don't give us the tail-end of your visit, will you?"
"Indeed, I won't," answered Rose, earnestly, "and if it were only you and Mrs. Heath, I 'd love to stay, but--but--"
"No need to say anything more, Rose, wifie and I understand it perfectly--" ("I wish the dickens I did!" was his thought)--"Tell wifie when she comes down, and meanwhile I 'll send round for the brougham and we 'll take a little drive in the Park before office hours."
Rose patted his hand, and her silence spoke for her.
"Here 's a pretty kettle of fish!" said the Doctor to himself as he went to the telephone. "I wish I could get to the bottom of it."
And thus it came about that a cool, dignified note, not expressive of any particular regret, was mailed to Cambridge on Sunday afternoon, and a long letter to Mount Hunger telling them to be sure to meet her on Tuesday at Barton's, and filled with wildly enthusiastic expressions of delight in anticipation of the home-coming. And on Tuesday afternoon, as the train sped onwards, following the curves of the frozen Connecticut, and the snow-covered mountains on the Vermont side began to crowd its banks, Rose felt a lightening of the heart and an uplifting of spirits.
The bitterness and shame and shock she had experienced, in consequence of that one little bite of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, seemed to diminish with every mile that increased the distance between her and the frothing whirlpool of the great city's gayeties. All the way up, until the mountains loomed in sight, there had been hot, indignant protest in her thoughts. At first, indeed, it had been hatred.