“Another,” thought Horace. It was a great relief to him when, only a week later, this girl found an admirer in one of the schoolboys, who, led by some strange fascination, followed her instead of one of the prettier, more attractive girls. Then the girl began to look more normal. She dressed more carefully and spent more time in arranging her hair. After all, she was very young, and abnormal instincts may be quieted with a mere sop at the first.
When Horace reached home that day of the drive he found that Rose had returned. Sylvia said that she had been at home half an hour.
“She went to Alford,” she said, “and I'm afraid she's all tired out. She came home looking as white as a sheet. She said she didn't want any dinner, but finally said she would come down.”
At the dinner-table Rose was very silent. She did not look at Horace at all. She ate almost nothing. After dinner she persisted in assisting Sylvia in clearing away the table and washing the dishes. Rose took a childish delight in polishing the china with her dish-towel. New England traits seemed to awake within her in this New England home. Sylvia was using the willow ware now, Rose was so pleased with it. The Calkin's soap ware was packed away on the top shelf of the pantry.
“It is perfectly impossible, Aunt Sylvia,” Rose had declared, and Sylvia had listened. She listened with much more docility than at first to the decrees of sophistication.
“The painting ain't nearly as natural,” she had said, feebly, regarding the moss rosebuds on a Calkin's soap plate with fluctuating admiration which caused her pain by its fluctuations.
“Oh, but, Aunt Sylvia, to think of comparing for one minute ware like that with this perfectly wonderful old willow ware!” Rose had said.
“Well, have your own way,” said Sylvia, with a sigh. “Maybe I can get used to everything all blue, when it ain't blue, after awhile. I know you have been around more than I have, and you ought to know.”
So the gold-and-white ware which had belonged to Sylvia's mother decked the breakfast-table and the willow ware did duty for the rest of the time. “I think it is very much better that you have no maid,” Rose said. “I simply would not trust a maid to care for china like this.”
Rose took care of her room now, and very daintily. “She'll be real capable after awhile,” Sylvia told Henry.