"I angry with you!" he cried. "Oh, Rosamond! Rosamond!"
"I am glad if you are not," she said,—"very glad; but I must go—the professor—" And she sped up the bank before he could speak again.
IV.
The professor came early to the seminary that evening, but Rosamond was ready for him, dressed in a gown of some soft white fabric which he had noticed and praised. She had roses in her hair, at her throat, in her belt, but the bright, soft color in her cheeks out-shone them all.
She began, almost as soon as they had exchanged greetings, to talk about her father, asking the professor how long he had known him, and what Dr. May had been like as a young man.
"Very shy and retiring," he replied. "I think that was the first link in our friendship: we both disliked society, and finally made an agreement with each other to decline all invitations and give up visiting. We found that everything of the kind interfered materially with advancement in our studies. But your father had already met your mother several times when we made this agreement. Their tastes were very similar, and her quiet, tranquil manner was extremely pleasant to him,—for, as you know, he was somewhat nervous and excitable,—so he claimed an exception in her favor; and, after two years of most pleasing intellectual companionship, they were married. It was a rarely complete and happy union."
"And I suppose," said Rosamond, with a curious touch of resentment in her voice, "that because he had never been like other young people, had never cared for young friends and pleasant times, it did not occur to him that I ought to have them? Oh, I don't see how he dared to rob me of my rights,—of my youth, which could only come once, of all life and pleasure and sunshine!"
"My dear," said the professor, looking very much startled and shocked, "he had no thought of robbing you: he loved you far too tenderly for that. You always seemed happy and bright, and you were very young when he died. No doubt, had he lived until you were of an age to enter society—"
But here she interrupted him with bitter self-reproaches.
"Oh, what have I said?" she cried. "He was all goodness, all love to me, and I have dared to find fault with him! Oh, what a base, wicked girl I am!"