Rose looked up with a careless answer, but thought better of it, and said nothing.
"You never did really think it, did you, Rose?" he added, pursuing his advantage, and repeating it until there was no escape for Rose, who had to answer truthfully, "No." She having made this concession, he made one, and told her the story of his boyish days, and of the Christmas day when he first saw Mary Brandon. He had not felt very easy about Rose's opinion of much he had to tell her, and was greatly relieved when he saw all her assumed carelessness depart, and that she listened to him with earnest sympathy. He was so encouraged by the gentle, womanly interest she gave him that he did not stop with the history of his boyish days, but went on to narrate a later experience; very few words sufficed for this. When he told it, Rose understood very well why, if Mary Brandon were a queen upon her throne, she would be no more than friend or sister to him.
After that, there seemed no more to be said; for they finished the walk in the still winter twilight almost in silence.
That was in February, when Dick went down to Carlton to spend Washington's birthday, and it inaugurated a new era for Will. Rose had a sudden interest in the post-office, which was a long walk from the cottage, and, in rainy weather or on very busy days, was beyond her reach. I believe all her spare pennies went into Will's coffers about that time, and I am sure all her cakes and apples went into his possession; but, for all that, he was an ungrateful page, and wished "there wasn't no post-offices in the world," which opinion Will may alter when his own time comes.
This was in February, and it was now August, and Dick was going down for a week, one whole week in the country. Rose was at the gate as she had been a year ago; but she did not say "you are welcome," as she had said before. The children took him into favor when they found he had not come empty-handed, but had brought the books for Will, the doll for Trot, and just such toys for the rest as were most desired; and though many times in their rambles Will did have his patience sorely tried by "Mr. Dick's everlasting lagging," he was, on the whole, admitted to be an acquisition. I believe, though, that Rose's bosom-friend, Clara Hays, who was always urged to be of every party, and sadly neglected when she got there, was the greatest sufferer; it is not every day you see lovers who are perfectly well-bred and considerate for everybody. My excuse for Rose and Dick is, that they only had a week, and a week is such a short time when one is very happy!
Dick's week was nearly at its end when his birthday, his twenty-first birthday came, and his good friends made a little rejoicing for him in their homely way. It was a very beautiful August day, and was celebrated like a holiday by all the family. Yet it was not exactly a cloudless day for Dick, though it was the first birthday of his that had ever received the slightest notice from any one, and ought to have made him radiantly happy. He had received a present made for him with her own hands, with no one could tell how many loving thoughts of him worked in it, from his own dear Rose. His little table was covered with the first keepsakes he had ever received from any one, and still he was not happy. Among the treasures on his little table there stood one—which reminds me that I should not have called the others the first—from the mother whose face he could not remember, and what might it not contain? Hitherto he had thought but little of the box of which Carl spoke so slightingly years ago; but now that the day of opening it had come, he grew really afraid of it. He remembered stories of vengeance bequeathed from the grave, of crimes to be expiated by the children of the perpetrators years afterward, of fearful confessions of sin and sorrow and wrong in countless forms; and Dick, in the first glow of his first joyous days, did not know how he could bear even a mist upon the rising sun of his happiness.
"Not until the last thing to-night," he said finally, laying down the box and turning away from the table. "I will be happy to the last minute," and he went down to ask Rose to walk with him in the beautiful twilight after tea. It was earlier than he had thought when he went down, and Rose was reading in the shadow of the porch, or seeming to read, for a book was in her hand, and not, as he supposed, engaged in getting tea.
"I did not suppose I should find you here," said Dick.
"Shall I go away?" she asked, looking up and smiling.