"The pink has come out in the blood, too," Grandmother remarked, adjusting her spectacles firmly upon the ever-useful and unfailing wart. "She was wearin' pink roses on her bonnet and pink ribbon strings. It wouldn't surprise me if it was the very strings what Rosemary has found in the trunk and is layin' out to wear."
"Me neither," Matilda chimed in.
"She was wearin' lace on her petticoats and high-heeled shoes, and all her handkerchiefs was fine linen," Grandmother continued. "Maybe you'd like some lace ruffles under your grey alpaca, wouldn't you, Rosemary?"
The girl got to her feet blindly. She gathered up the dishes with cold hands that trembled, took them out into the kitchen, and noiselessly closed the door. Her heart was hot with resentment, even though she had heard the story, with variations, ever since she was old enough to understand it.
"Poor little mother," said Rosemary, to herself. "Dear little mother! Why couldn't you have taken me with you!"
As Grandmother had said, for the hundredth time and more, Frank Starr had brought home his young wife unexpectedly. The surprise, in itself, was a shock from which she and Matilda had never recovered. Even now, they were fond of alluding to the years of ill-health directly caused by it, and of subtly blaming Rosemary for it.
An Orphan
At the end of the third day, the young couple had departed hastily, the bride in tears. A year or so afterward, when Rosemary was born, the little mother died, having lived only long enough to ask that the baby be named "Rosemary"—Rose for her own mother and Mary for Grandmother Starr.
Stern, white-faced, and broken-hearted, Frank Starr brought his child to his mother and sister, and almost immediately went West. Intermittently he wrote briefly, sent money, gave insufficient addresses, or none at all, and, at length, disappeared. At the time his last letter was written, he had expected to take a certain steamer plying along the Western coast. As the ship was wrecked and he was never heard from again, it seemed that Rosemary was an orphan, dependent upon her grandmother and aunt.
In their way, they were kind to her. She was sent to school regularly, and had plenty to eat and wear, of a certain sort. Every Spring, Aunt Matilda made the year's supply of underclothing, using for the purpose coarse, unbleached muslin, thriftily purchased by the bolt. The brown alpaca and brown gingham, in which she and her grandmother and aunt had been dressed ever since she could remember, were also bought by the piece. The fashion of the garments had not changed, for one way of making a gown was held to be as good as another, and a great deal easier, if the maker were accustomed to doing it.