How is my darling
to-day?"

"Better, better,--almost well," returned Rose, raising herself in bed
to prove what she had said. "I shall be out in a few days, and then
you'll buy me one of those elegant plaid silks, won't you? All the
girls are wearing them, and I haven't had a new dress this winter, and
here 'tis almost March."

Oh, how the father longed to tell his dying child that her next dress
would be a shroud. But he could not. He was too much a man of the
world to speak to her of death,--he would leave that for her
grandmother; so without answering her question, he said, "Rose, do you
think you are able to be moved into the country?"

"What, to Chicopee? that horrid dull place! I thought we were not
going there this summer."

"No, not to Chicopee, but to your grandma Howland's, in Glenwood. The
physician thinks you will be more quiet there, and the pure air will
do you good."

Rose looked earnestly in her father's face to see if he meant what he
said, and then replied, "I'd rather go any where in the world than to
Glenwood. You've no idea how, I hate to stay there. Grandma is so
queer, and the things in the house so fussy and countrified,--and
cooks by a _fireplace_, and washes in a tin basin, and wipes on a
crash towel that hangs on a roller!"

Mr. Lincoln could hardly repress a smile at Rose's reasoning, but
perceiving that he must be decided, he said, "We think it best for you
to go, and shall accordingly make arrangements to take you in the
course of a week or two. Your mother will stay with you, and Jenny,
too, will be there a part of the time;" then, not wishing to witness
the effect of his words, he hastily left the room, pausing in the hall
to wipe away the tears which involuntarily came to his eyes, as he
overheard Rose angrily wonder, "why she should be turned out of doors
when she wasn't able to sit up!"

"I never can bear the scent of those great tallow candles, never,"
said she; "and then to think of the coarse sheets and patchwork
bedquilts--oh, it's dreadful!"

Jenny's heart, too, was well-nigh bursting, but she forced down her
own sorrow, while she strove to comfort her sister, telling her how
strong and well the bracing air of the country would make her, and how
refreshing when her fever was on would be the clear, cold water which
gushed from the spring near the thorn-apple tree, where in childhood
they so oft had played. Then she spoke of the miniature waterfall,
which not far from th