a mere child of her age, and looked so doubly dismal by contrast with
the brilliant sunny lawn on which she stood, that I quite started when
I first saw her, and eagerly asked my mother who she was. The answer
informed me of the sad family story, which I have been just relating to
you. Mrs. Welwyn had then been buried about three months; and Ida,
in her childish way, was trying, as she had promised, to supply her
mother's place to her infant sister Rosamond.

I only mention this simple incident, because it is necessary, before
I proceed to the eventful part of my narrative, that you should know
exactly in what relation the sisters stood toward one another from the
first. Of all the last parting words that Mrs. Welwyn had spoken to her
child, none had been oftener repeated, none more solemnly urged, than
those which had commended the little Rosamond to Ida's love and care.
To other persons, the full, the all-trusting dependence which the dying
mother was known to have placed in a child hardly eleven years old,
seemed merely a proof of that helpless desire to cling even to the
feeblest consolations, which the approach of death so often brings with
it. But the event showed that the trust so strangely placed had not been
ventured vainly when it was committed to young and tender hands. The
whole future existence of the child was one noble proof that she had
been worthy of her mother's dying confidence, when it was first reposed
in her. In that simple incident which I have just mentioned the new life
of the two motherless sisters was all foreshadowed.

Time passed. I left school--went to college--traveled in Germany, and
stayed there some time to learn the language. At every interval when I
came home, and asked about the Welwyns, the answer was, in substance,
almost always the same. Mr. Welwyn was giving his regular dinners,
performing his regular duties as a county magistrate, enjoying his
regular recreations as an a amateur farmer and an eager sportsman. His
two daughters were never separate. Ida was the same strange, quiet,
retiring girl, that she had always been; and was still (as the phrase
went) "spoiling" Rosamond in every way in which it was possible for an
elder sister to spoil a younger by too much kindness.

I myself went to the Grange occasionally, when I was in this
neighborhood, in holiday and vacation time; and was able to test the
correctness of the picture of life there which had been drawn for me. I
reme