Here a coughing fit ensued, and after it was over, she continued, "Isn't George Moreland expected soon?"
Jenny nodded, and Rose proceeded, "I must, and will be well before he comes, for 'twill never do to yield the field to that Howard girl, who they say is contriving every way to get him,—coaxing round old Aunt Martha, and all that. But how ridiculous! George Moreland, with his fastidious, taste, marry a pauper!" and the sick girl's fading cheek glowed, and her eyes grew brighter at the absurd idea!
Just then Mr. Lincoln entered the room. He had been consulting with his wife the propriety of taking Rose to her grandmother's in the country. She would thus be saved the knowledge of his failure, which could not much longer be kept a secret; and besides that, they all, sooner or later, must leave the house in which they were living; and he judged it best to remove his daughter while she was able to endure the journey. At first Mrs. Lincoln wept bitterly for if Rose went to Glenwood, she, too, must of course go and the old brown house, with its oaken floor and wainscoted ceiling, had now no charms for the gay woman of fashion who turned with disdain from the humble roof which had sheltered her childhood.
Lifting her tearful eyes to her husband's face, she said "Oh, I can't go there. Why not engage rooms at the hotel in Glenwood village. Mother is so odd and peculiar in her ways of living, that I never can endure it," and again Mrs. Lincoln buried her face in the folds of her fine linen cambric, thinking there was never in the world a woman as wretched as herself.
"Don't, Hatty, don't; it distresses me to see you feel thus. Rooms and board at the hotel would cost far more than I can afford to pay, and then, too,—" here he paused, as if to gather courage for what he was next to say; "and then, too, your mother will care for Rose's soul as well as body."
Mrs. Lincoln looked up quickly, and her husband continued, "Yes, Hatty, we need not deceive ourselves longer. Rose must die, and you know as well as I whether our training has been such as will best fit her for another world."
For a time Mrs. Lincoln was silent, and then in a more subdued tone, she said, "Do as you like, only you must tell Rose. I never can."
Half an hour after, Mr. Lincoln entered his daughter's room, and bending affectionately over her pillow, said, "How is my darling to-day?"
"Better, better,—almost well," returned Rose, raising herself in bed to prove what she had said. "I shall be out in a few days, and then you'll buy me one of those elegant plaid silks, won't you? All the girls are wearing them, and I haven't had a new dress this winter, and here 'tis almost March."
Oh, how the father longed to tell his dying child that her next dress would be a shroud. But he could not. He was too much a man of the world to speak to her of death,—he would leave that for her grandmother; so without answering her question, he said, "Rose, do you think you are able to be moved into the country?"