Rose took another turn round the lawn with her father before they went in. Mrs. Damerel was visible inside, sending the tray away, putting stray books in their places, and stray bits of work in the work-basket, before the bell should ring for prayers. Mr. Damerel looked in as he passed with an indulgent smile.
“She calleth her maidens about her,” he said, “though it is not to spin, Rose, but to pray. Somehow it enhances the luxury of our stroll to see your mother there, putting everything in order with that careful and troubled face—eh, child, don’t you think with me?”
“But does it enhance her luxury to have us walking and talking while she has everything to lay by?” said Rose with an uncomfortable sense that her own work and several books which she had left about were among those which her mother was putting away.
“Ah, you have found out that there are two sides to a question,” said her father, patting her on the cheek, with his gentle habitual smile; but he gave no answer to her question; and then the maids became visible, trooping in, in their white caps and aprons, and the rector with a sigh and a last look at the midnight and the dim, dewy landscape, went in to domesticity and duty, which he did not like so well.
Rose went to her room that night with a thrill of all her gentle being which she could not explain. She looked out from her window among the honeysuckles, and was so disappointed as almost to cry when she found the lights out, and the little cottage on Ankermead lost in the darkness. She could have cried, and yet but for that fanciful trouble, how happy the child was! Everything embraced her—the clinging tendrils of the honeysuckle, so laden with dew and sweetness; the shadows of the trees, which held out their arms to her; the soft, caressing moon which touched her face and surrounded it with a pale glory. Nothing but good and happiness was around, behind, before her, and a trembling of happiness to come, even sweeter than anything she had ever known, whispered over her in soft, indefinite murmurs, like the summer air in the petals of a flower. She opened her bosom to it, with a delicious half-consciousness fresh as any rose that lets its leaves be touched by the sweet south. This Rose in June expanded, grew richer, and of a more damask rosiness, but could not tell why.
CHAPTER IV.
Mrs. Damerel thought it her duty, a few nights after this, to speak to her husband of Rose’s suitors. “Mr. Incledon has spoken so plainly to me that I cannot mistake him,” she said; “and in case you should not have noticed it yourself, Herbert”—
“I notice it!” he said, with a smile; “what chance is there that I should notice it? So my Rose in June is woman enough to have lovers of her own!”
“I was married before I was Rose’s age,” said Mrs. Damerel.
“So you were, Martha. I had forgotten the progress of time, and that summer, once attained, is a long step towards autumn. Well, if it must be, it must be. Incledon is not a bad fellow, as men go.”