After Maurice had gone, Rosalind still sat there in the wintry sunshine. Things seemed very quiet just now, with Uncle Allan away for a week and Aunt Genevieve not yet returned. She and her grandmother were keeping each other company, and becoming better acquainted than ever before. Mrs. Whittredge's glance often rested upon her granddaughter with a sort of wistful affection, and once, when their eyes met, Rosalind, with a quick impulse, had gone to her side and put her arms around her. Mrs. Whittredge returned the caress, saying, "I shall be sorry to give you up, dearie."
On another occasion Rosalind had told how surprised she had been to find that her grandmother did not wear caps and do knitting work. "But I like you a great deal better as you are," she added.
Mrs. Whittredge smiled. "I fear I am in every way far from being an ideal grandmother," she said.
Rosalind thought of all this, her eyes on the dismantled garden. The flower beds were bare, the shrubs done up in straw, the fountain dry, and yet something recalled the summer day when she had sat just here learning her hymn. She remembered her old dreams of Friendship, and now she decided that the reality was best. She shut her eyes and tried to think just how she had felt that Sunday afternoon.
"What is the matter, little girl?" The magician's words, but not his voice; nor was it his face she looked into.
"Father!" she cried,—"you dear! Where did you come from?"
It was some time before any connected conversation was possible.
"Why, father, how brown you are!"
"And Rosalind, how tall you are, and how rosy! To think I have lost six months of your life!"
"And I want to tell you everything just in one minute. What shall I do?" Rosalind said, laughing, as she held him fast.