"Yes, dear Rose, I must. I have only two days of vacation left, and I must know all before I go back."
"And then you will not be here for so long?"
"Yes, I will, Rose; I'll be here if I have to walk all night, see your windows, and go back before daylight! Yes, I will see you. I will not bear all the long separation as I did before, it is too much! Now, may I go to-morrow?"
"Yes, Dick, you must go. O Dick! what a mother she was! I can just see her, so weak she could not lift little you in her arms; and yet, I am sure, giving you a thousand caresses, and crying over you as she wrote that letter! If she could only see you now!"
"I know she does see me; but she does not see me as I ought to be, having had such a mother."
"She is proud of you if she sees you."
"See how patient she was, Rose! She says she is poorer than the poor apple-woman, and yet no complaint; and she was not used to trouble, I am sure, from her face."
"So sweet and grave as she is! Really, Richard, look! Upon my word, Miss Brandon has just such eyes! It is so! See! the same blue-gray eyes, so clear, deep, and looking at you so frankly and graciously; not with the frankness of a question asked; but—I can't describe it—but that calm, straightforward way Miss Mary has when she listens to you; always as if she would encourage you, too, to go on. Indeed, you must go to-morrow!"
"It is so strange, Rose. I feel my head almost turning. Have we time to read it over once more?"