Before she had reached the head of the stairs her grandmother's voice called her hack. Reluctantly she returned.
Mrs. Whittredge had risen and now came to meet her and put her arm around her, and her voice was soft and full of affection as she asked, "Do you want to go to the cemetery with me this afternoon, pet? Aunt Genevieve has the carriage, and I think a walk will do me good."
The walk along the shady street and through the grassy lane to the gate at the foot of the hill was as pleasant as a walk could be that summer day. Rosalind kept sedately by her grandmother's side, and the face under the drooping hat was grave. Behind them walked Martin with some garden tools and a watering-pot.
The serious eyes brightened, and the lips curved into a smile at sight of Maurice and Katherine playing dominos under the maple. How lovely it must be to have a brother or sister to play with and talk to!
The cemetery was not new to Rosalind, for Mrs. Whittredge on her daily drive usually stopped there, and its winding paths and green slopes, its drooping willows and graceful oaks, and the flowers that bloomed everywhere, around the stately shafts of marble and the low headstones, seemed to her very pleasant. Here, however, her grandmother's sadness took on a deeper tinge as she moved among the mounds that lay in the shadow of the massive granite monument with "Whittredge" in letters of bronze at its base.
As Martin went to work trimming the ivy under his mistress's direction, Rosalind wandered away by herself across the hill-top, pausing now and then to read an inscription and do a sum in subtraction, on the result of which her interest largely depended. "Lily, born 1878, died 1888," stirred her imagination, and she sat down to consider it at length. How old would Lily be now if she had lived? She tried to think how her own name would look on a stone. It was still and peaceful on that sunny hillside; it reminded her of "Sharon's lovely rose." The idea of a grave here was not unattractive. She was considering it pensively when her eyes fell on a long-stemmed, creamy rose, lying not far from her on the ground. With instant pleasure in its beauty she took it up and held it against her cheek.
Where had it come from? Some one must have dropped it. She stood up and looked around, but there was no one in sight. On the other side of a holly bush, however, a number of just such roses lay on a grave. Rosalind walked over and stooped to read the name on the low headstone. "Robert Ellis Fair," she repeated half aloud as she laid her rose beside the others.
When she lifted her head she met the surprised gaze of a young lady, who came across the grass with a watering-pot in her hand. She was decidedly pretty to look at, and she smiled pleasantly as she began watering the flowers in an iron vase.
Rosalind felt she must explain, so she said, smiling in her turn, "I found a rose on the grass, and I thought it must belong here."
"Thank you. I suppose I dropped it. Won't you tell me who you are? I am sure you do not live in Friendship."