"Listen, Mr. Tregurtha. I am only sixteen, as you know, and childish for that age. I have lived so much alone and so wrapped up in my examinations and out-of-door pursuits that I simply have never yet had occasion to think of marriage. You see, I have no lady relatives, except Lyndis—and she is so serious! I imagined love would find its own way to me, without my playing with it beforehand. Now I see it needs practice."
"Did the admiral never warn you of your future lovers?" here put in Tregurtha, with some incredulity.
"Oh, the admiral! Who cares what the admiral says? He's an old sailor, what can you expect? They think of nothing else in connection with us women."
Tregurtha gave vent to a dismal chuckle at Rosetta's not altogether far-fetched aphorism on the navy. He was scarcely in a position to controvert it.
"And so you paid no attention?"
"Not much," said Rosetta, blushing. "At least I never dreamt that a man would love me yet, and that I should not be able to return his sentiment. I relied for the contrary on my southern nature, and troubled my head no more about it. Indeed, I used to think that I should like to have a lover, and now—now he is come!" And Rosetta covered her face and broke into low, sad sobbing.
"Oh, you poor little child! And I have done you harm, blundering into your charmed circle of heart-freedom! What a shame it is!"
Tregurtha rose up from his seat, and stood stretching his arms out with a laugh of self-directed irony; before this good and innocent girl, with all her sorrow for him, he felt utterly baffled, hopeless, and cast back.
"Let me try to explain myself further," pleaded Rosetta, with as much eagerness as if it were her fault that she could not love Tregurtha.
"See, I am happy here. To some people it is not given to know when they are happy, but I do know. I rejoice in my existence. I want nothing save that love which is beautiful in poetry and tragical in life. Here I am useful; you know the admiral—his dear, quarrelsome ways—who can keep him in order except me? Why, if I did not act as his interpreter there would never be a farm laborer on the place: every plowboy and cowman on it would give the admiral notice to-morrow—if I did! Here is my home, too; I love it. I love every corner of this old-fashioned garden—the corner where the winter violets grow, the nooks to find snowdrops in, and the borders with the scented pinks and heart's-ease in irregular places. I look for each flower as it comes out, and I scarcely care to stray outside our sweetbrier hedge."