CHAPTER X.
THE REVELATION.
Next morning, at breakfast, Captain Danton was back; but Reginald's handsome face, and easy flow of conversation, were missing. George Howard, it appeared, was going on a skating excursion some miles off, that day, and had prevailed on Mr. Stanford to remain and accompany him.
Rose felt about as desolate as if she had been shipwrecked on a desert island. There was a pang of jealousy mingled with the desolation, too. Emily Howard was a sparkling brunette, a coquette, an heiress, and a belle. Was it the skating excursion or Emily's big black eyes that had tempted him to linger? Perhaps Emily would go with them skating, and Rose knew how charming piquant little Miss Howard was on skates.
It was a miserable morning altogether, and Rose tormented herself in true orthodox lover-like style. She roamed about the house aimlessly, pulling out her watch perpetually to look at the hour, and sighing drearily. She wondered at Kate, who sat so placidly playing some song without words, with the Scotch baronet standing by the piano, absorbed.
"What does she know of love?" thought Rose, contemptuously. "She is as cold as a polar iceberg. She ought to marry that knight of the woeful countenance beside her, and be my lady, and live in a castle, and eat and sleep in velvet and rubies. It would just suit her."
Doctor Danton came up in the course of the forenoon, to make a professional call. His patient was better, calmer, less nervous, and able to sit up in a rocking-chair, wrapped in a great shawl. Grace persuaded him to stay to luncheon, and he did, and tried to win Miss Rose out of the dismals, and got incontinently snubbed for his pains.
But there was balm in Gilead for Rose. Just after luncheon a little shell-like sleigh, with prancing ponies and jingling bells, whirled musically up to the door. A pretty, blooming, black-eyed girl was its sole occupant; and Rose, at the drawing-room window, ran out to meet her.
"My darling Emily!" cried Rose, kissing the young lady she had been wishing at Jericho all day, "how glad I am to see you! Come in! You will stay to dinner, won't you?"