he rest were so
well-acquainted and so thoroughly at ease, and preferred to remain at
home; but all the same, to have the others so gay and busy gave her a
sense of loneliness and separation which was painful to bear. Clover
tried more than once to persuade her out of her solitary mood; but she
was too much occupied herself and too absorbed to take much time for
coaxing a reluctant guest, and the others dispensed with her company
quite easily; in fact, they were too busy to notice her absence much or
ask questions. So the fortnight, which passed so quickly and brilliantly
at the Hut, and was always afterward alluded to as "that delightful time
when Rose was here," was anything but delightful at the "Hutlet," where
poor Imogen sat homesick and forlorn, feeling left alone on one side of
all the pleasant things, scarcely realizing that it was her own choice
and doing, and wishing herself back in Devonshire.

"Lion seems quite taken up with these new people and _that_ Mrs.
Browne," she reflected. "He's always going off with them to one place or
another. I might as well be back in Bideford for all the use I am to
him." This was unjust, for Lionel was anxious and worried over his
sister's depressed looks and indisposition to share in the pleasures
that were going on; but Imogen just then saw things through a gloomy
medium, and not quite as they were. She felt dull and heavy-hearted, and
did not seem able to rouse herself from her lassitude and weariness.

Out of the whole party no one was so perfectly pleased with her
surroundings as the smaller Rose. Everything seemed to suit the little
maid exactly. She made a delightful playfellow for the babies, telling
them fairy stories by the dozen, and teaching them new games, and
washing and dressing Phillida with all the gravity and decorum of an old
nurse. They followed her about like two little dogs, and never left her
side for a moment if they could possibly help it. All was fish that came
to her happy little net, whether it was playing with little Geoff, going
on excursions with the elders, scrambling up the steep side-canyons
under Phil's escort in search of flowers and curiosities, or riding
sober old Marigold to the Upper Valley as she was sometimes allowed to
do. The only cloud in her perfect satisfaction was that she must some
day go away.

"It won't be very pleasant when I get back to Boston, and don't have
anything to do but just walk down Pinckney Street with Mary Anne