"What an imposition!" Isabel said. "Aunt Francesca, didn't I meet
Allison Kent when I was here before?"
"I've forgotten."
"Don't you remember? Mother brought me here once when I was a little tot. We stayed about a week and the roses were all in bloom. I can see the garden now. Allison used to come over sometimes and tell me fairy stories. He told me that the long, slender gold-trimmed bottles filled with attar of roses came from the roots of the rose bushes—don't you remember? And I pulled up rose bushes all over the garden to find out."
"Dear me, yes," smiled Aunt Francesca. "How time does fly!"
"You were very cross with Allison—that is, as cross as you ever could be. It seemed so queer for you to be angry at him and not at me, for I pulled up the bushes."
"You were sufficiently punished, Isabel. I believe the thorns hurt your little hands, didn't they?"
"They certainly did," responded the girl, with a little shudder at the recollection. "I have a scar still. That was—let me see—why, it was fifteen years ago!"
"Just before I came to live with Aunt Francesca," said Rose. "You and your mother went away the same day."
"Yes, we went in the morning," Isabel continued, "and you were to come in the afternoon. I remember pleading with my mother to let me stay long enough to see 'Cousin Wose.'"
"Fifteen years!" Madame repeated. "Allison went abroad, then, to study the violin, and the house has been open only once since. Richard came back for a Summer, to attend to some business, then returned to Europe. How the time goes by!"