"To-day!"
"Don't keep me, mother," besought Rosaline. "You don't know what it is for me here. These past two nights! have never closed my eyes; no, not for a moment. Let me start at once, mother! Oh, let me go! I shall have brain-fever if I remain."
"Well, I never!" cried Mrs. Bell, other words failing her to express her astonishment. "I never did think you could have put yourself into this unseemly fantigue, child; no, not for all the Whistlers in the air. As to starting off to Falmouth to-day, why, you could not have your things ready."
"They can be ready in half-an-hour," returned Rosaline, eagerly, her lips feverish with excitement. "I have already put them together."
"Well, I'm sure!—taking French leave, in that way, before you knew whether you might go or not! There, there; don't begin to cry and shake again. There's an afternoon train. And—and perhaps your father will be in before that."
"It is the best train I could go by," said Rosaline, turning to hang up the ladle on its hook by the dresser.
"It's not the best; it's the worst," contradicted Dame Bell. "Not but what it may be as well if you do go. I'm ashamed of the neighbours seeing you can be so silly and superstitious. The train does not get into Falmouth till night-time."
"Oh yes, it does," said Rosaline, anxiously: "it gets in quite early enough. Why, mother, I shall be at Aunt Pellet's soon after dark." And she crossed the kitchen with a quicker step than had been seen since that past miserable Tuesday night, and opened the staircase-door.
"And suppose your father does not come home first?" debated Mrs. Bell, not quite pleased with the tacit leave she had given. "How will you reconcile yourself to going away in the uncertainty, Rose?"
Rose did not answer. She only ran up the stairs, shutting the door behind her. "What in the world does ail the child?" exclaimed Dame Bell, considerably put out. "It's my belief the fright has turned her head. Until now she has always laughed at such things."