from Chaudiere should have her wits about her.
So Rosalie interpreted it.

"Have you many friends here?" asked the cold voice, meant to be kindly
and pacific. It was schooled to composure, because it gave advantage in
life's intercourse, not from any inner urbanity.

"Some need many friends, some but a few. I come from a country where one
only needs a few."

"Where is your country, I wonder?" said the cold echo of another voice.

Charley had passed out of Kathleen's life--he was dead to her, his
memory scorned and buried. She loved the man to whom she supposed she
was married; she was only too glad to let the dust of death and time
cover every trace of Charley from her gaze; she would have rooted out
every particle of association: yet his influence on her had been so
great that she had unconsciously absorbed some of his idiosyncrasies--in
the tone of his voice, in his manner of speaking. To-day she had even
repeated phrases he had used.

"Beyond the hills," said Rosalie, turning away.

"Is it not strange?" said the voice. "That is the title of one of the
books I have just brought--'Beyond the Hills'. It is by an English
writer. This other book is French. May I leave them?"

Rosalie inclined her head. It would make her own position less dignified
if she refused them. "Books are always welcome to my father," she said.

There was an instant's pause, as though the fashionable lady would offer
her hand; but their eyes met, and they only bowed. The lady moved on
with a smile, leaving a perfume of heliotrope behind her.

"Where is your country, I wonder?"--the voice of the lady rang in
Rosalie's ears. As she sat at the window again, long after the visitors
had disappeared, the words, "I wonder--I wonder--I wonder!" kept beating
in her brain. It was absurd that this woman should remind her of the
tailor of Chaudiere.

Suddenly she was roused by her father's voice. "This is beautiful--ah,
but beautiful, Rosalie!"

She turned towards him. He was reading the book in his hand--'Beyond the
Hills'. "Listen," he said, and he read, in English: "'Compensation
is the other name for God. How often is it that those whom disease or
accident has robbed of active life find greater inner rejoicing and a
larger spiritual itinerary! It would seem that withdrawal from the ruder
activities gives a clearer seeing. Also for these, so often, is granted
a greater love, which comes of the consecration of other lives to
theirs. And these to