Lover or Friend

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

'She is a dear, good child, and I should love to have her with me,' was Mrs. Ross's reply. 'That is a clever thought of yours, my love, and Michael certainly will want his wife to himself—men always do.'

'If you really think so, mother, and if Mollie does not mind, she shall stay at Woodcote,' was Audrey's reply.

And when Mollie was consulted she proved quite willing to do as they all wished.

'Of course, dear Mrs. Ross will be dull. And I know I should only be in Captain Burnett's way,' argued Mollie, a little tearfully. 'I knew that from the first. I shall miss you dreadfully, Audrey. No one will ever take your place; but I shall feel as though I were helping you somehow.'

'Yes, and then you will pay me long visits, Mollie; and, of course, Michael will often bring me to see mother.'

And this charming prospect, and the promise that she should be Audrey's bridesmaid, speedily consoled Mollie.

Michael had stipulated that their honeymoon should be spent in Scotland, and to Audrey's amusement Braemar was the place he finally selected, and he would have the very cottage, or rather cottages, that Dr. Ross had taken for his family.

'We can shut up some of the rooms and only use as many as we want,' he said, when Mrs. Ross had complained of the roominess. 'We are rich people, and can afford it; and as Crauford is to be Audrey's maid, she can come with us and see that things are comfortable. Do you remember that sitting-room, Audrey, and the horse-hair sofa, and the rowan-berries and heather in the big china jars? By the bye, you must have a gray tweed dress and a deerstalker cap, and look as you used to look; and there is the little bridge where Gage and I used to meet you all when you had had a day's outing on the moors. Shall you not love to go there again, Audrey?

And in answer Audrey said 'Yes' rather demurely.

But she was not demure at all when two months afterwards she sat on the little bridge in the sunset, watching the very same ducks dibble with their yellow bills in the brook that trickled so musically over the stones, while Michael stood beside her, lazily throwing in pebbles for Booty's amusement; on the contrary, she was laughing and talking with a great deal of animation, and, strange to say, she wore the gray tweed, and the deerstalker cap was on her bright brown hair.