"Not dreaming, Rose," he answered—then rather hurriedly he added: "I have a letter from Maggie Miller, and ere I answer it I would read it to you. Can you hear it now?"
"Yes, yes," she whispered faintly; "read it to me, Henry;" and, turning her face away, she listened while he read that Maggie Miller, grown weary of her troth, asked a release from her engagement.
He finished reading, and then waited in silence to hear what Rose would say. But for a time she did not speak. All hope for herself had long since died away, and now she experienced only sorrow for Henry's disappointment.
"My poor brother," she said at last, turning her face towards him and taking his hand in hers; "I am sorry for you—to lose us both, Maggie and me. What will you do?"
"Rose," he said, bending so low that his brown locks mingled with the yellow tresses of her hair—"Rose, I do not regret Maggie Miller's decision, neither do I blame her for it. She is a noble, true-hearted girl, and so long as I live I shall esteem her highly; but I too have changed—have learned to love another. Will you sanction this new love, dear Rose? Will you say that it is right?"
The white lids closed over the eyes of blue, but they could not keep back the tears which rolled down her face, as she asked somewhat sadly, "Who is it, Henry?"
There was another moment of silence, and then he whispered in her ear:
"People call her Rose; I once called her sister; but my heart now
claims her for something nearer. My Rose," he continued, "shall it be?
Will you live for my sake? Will you be my wife?"
The shock was too sudden—too great; and neither on that night, nor yet the succeeding day, had Rose the power to answer. But as the dew of heaven is to the parched and dying flower, so were these words of love to her, imparting at once new life and strength, making her as it were another creature. The question asked that night so unexpectedly was answered at last; and then with almost perfect happiness at her heart, she too added a few lines to the letter which Henry sent to Maggie Miller, over whose pathway, hitherto so bright, a fearful shadow was falling.