She looked up, "Your's first then."
"I was thinking it must be hard to die before you came to be a rose—like some other more human things."
"Is that a charade, John? You will be writing poems about the lament of the belated virgin roses that had not gathered more timely sunshine and were alas! too late."
He looked at her with a smile of pleased surprise. "Thanks, cousin; it is you who should be the laureate of the garden. Shelley would envy you."
"Indeed! I am flattered, sir, but I have not read any of Shelley as yet. You have, I suppose? He is supposed to be very wicked. Get me some more golden-rod, John." He went back to the edge of the wood and came again laden, rejoining her at the porch.
For two days her aunt kept her busy. Early in the week she went away to be met in Philadelphia by her Uncle Charles, and to be returned to her Maryland school.
A day or two later John too left to undergo the dreaded examination at West Point. The two older people were left alone at Grey Pine with the rector, who had returned from his annual holiday later than usual. Always depressed at these seasons, he was now indisposed for the society of even the two people who were his most valued friends. He dined with them the day John went away and took up the many duties of his clerical life, until as was his custom, a week later he came in smiling for the Saturday dinner, saying, "Well, here comes the old house-dog for his bone."
They made him welcome as gaily. "Has the town wickedness accumulated in your absence, Mark?" said Penhallow.
"Mine has," said Ann Penhallow, "but I never confess except to myself."
"Ann Penhallow might be a severe confessor," said Rivers as they sat down. "How you must miss John and Leila. I shall most sadly."