"Darling Rose!" murmured Maggie, pressing the delicately traced lines to her lips, "how near she seems to me! nearer almost than Theo;" and then involuntarily her thoughts went backward to the night when Henry Warner first told her of his love, and when in her dreams there had been a strange blending together of herself, of Rose, and the little grave beneath the pine!
But not yet was that veil of mystery to be lifted. Hagar's secret must be kept a little longer; and, unsuspicious of the truth, Maggie Miller must dream on of sweet Rose Warner, whom she hopes one day to call her sister!
There was also a message from Henry, and this George Douglas delivered in secret, for he did not care to displease his grandmother-elect, who viewing him through a golden setting, thought he was not to be equaled by anyone in America. "So gentlemanly," she said, "and so modest too," basing her last conclusion upon his evident unwillingness to say very much of himself or his family. Concerning the latter she had questioned him in vain, eliciting nothing save the fact that they lived in the country several miles from Worcester, and that his father always stayed at home, and consequently his mother went but little into society.
"Despises the vulgar herd, I dare say," thought Madam Conway, contemplating the pleasure she should undoubtedly derive from an acquaintance with Mrs. Douglas, senior!
"There was a sister, too," he said, and at this announcement Theo opened wide her blue eyes, asking her name, and why he had never mentioned her before.
"I call her Jenny," said he, coloring slightly, and adding playfully, as he caressed Theo's smooth, round cheek, "Wives do not usually like their husbands' sisters."
"But I shall like her, I know," said Theo. "She has a beautiful name, Jenny Douglas—much prettier than Rose Warner, about whom Maggie talks to me so much."
A gathering frown on her grandmother's face warned Theo that she had touched upon a forbidden subject, and as Mr. Douglas manifested no desire to continue the conversation it ceased for a time, Theo wishing she could see Jenny Douglas, and George wondering what she would say when she did see her!
For a few days longer he lingered, and ere his return it was arranged that early in July Theo should be his bride. On the morning of his departure, as he stood upon the steps alone with Madam Conway, she said, "I think I can rely upon you, Mr. Douglas, not to carry either letter, note, or message from Maggie to that young Warner. I've forbidden him in my house, and I mean what I say."
"I assure you, madam, she has not asked me to carry either," answered George; who, though he knew perfectly well of the secret correspondence, had kept it to himself. "You mistake Mr. Warner, I think," he continued, after a moment. "I have known him long, and esteem him highly."