donable extravagance
to hire a servant. I will not go, and that ends it! If you want to be
rid of me, I can die fast enough here."

Mrs. Lincoln had nothing to say, for she well knew she had trained her
daughter to despise every thing pertaining to the old brown house,
once her childhood home, and where even now the kind-hearted
grandmother was busy in preparing for the reception of the invalid.
From morning until night did the little active form of Grandma Howland
flit from room to room, washing windows which needed no washing,
dusting tables on which no dust was lying, and doing a thousand things
which she thought would add to the comfort of Rose. On one room in
particular did the good old lady bestow more than usual care. 'Twas
the "spare chamber," at whose windows Rose, when a little girl, had
stood for hours, watching the thin, blue mist and fleecy clouds, as
they floated around the tall green mountains, which at no great
distance seemed to tower upward, and upward, until their tops were
lost in the sky above. At the foot of the mountain and nearer
Glenwood, was a small sheet of water which now in the spring time was
plainly discernible from the windows of Rose's chamber, and with
careful forethought Mrs. Howland arranged the bed so that the sick
girl could look out upon the tiny lake and the mountains beyond. Snowy
white, and fragrant with the leaves of rose and geranium which had
been pressed within their folds, were the sheets which covered the
bed, the last Rose Lincoln would ever rest upon. Soft and downy were
the pillows, and the patchwork quilt, Rose's particular aversion, was
removed, and its place supplied by one of more modern make.

Once Mrs. Howland thought to shade the windows with the Venetian
blinds which hung in the parlor below; but they shut out so much
sunlight, and made the room so gloomy, that she carried them back,
substituting in their place plain white muslin curtains. The best
rocking chair, and the old-fashioned carved mirror, were brought up
from the parlor; and then when all was done, Mrs. Howland gave a sigh
of satisfaction that it was so well done, and closed the room until
Rose should arrive.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

GLENWOOD.

Through the rich crimson curtains which shaded Rose Lincoln's sleeping
room, the golden beams of a warm March sun wore stealing, lighting up
the thin features of the sick girl with a glow so nearly resembling
health, that Jenny, when she came to wish he