from you now."

"Indeed!" said Christopher, grimly. "Well, then, I hear you had no
sooner got rid of your old lover, for loving you too well and telling
you the truth, than you took up another,--some flimsy man of fashion,
who will tell you any lie you like."

"It is a story, a wicked story," cried Rosa, thoroughly alarmed. "Me, a
lover! He dances like an angel; I can't help that."

"Are his visits at your house like angels'--few and far between?" And
the true lover's brow lowered black upon her for the first time.

Rosa changed color, and her eyes fell a moment. "Ask papa," she said.
"His father was an old friend of papa's."

"Rosa, you are prevaricating. Young men do not call on old gentlemen
when there is an attractive young lady in the house."

The argument was getting too close; so Rosa operated a diversion. "So,"
said she, with a sudden air of lofty disdain, swiftly and adroitly
assumed, "you have had me watched?"

"Not I; I only hear what people say."

"Listen to gossip and not have me watched! That shows how little you
really cared for me. Well, if you had, you would have made a little
discovery, that is all."

"Should I?" said Christopher, puzzled. "What?"

"I shall not tell you. Think what you please. Yes, sir, you would have
found out that I take long walks every day, all alone; and what is
more, that I walk through Gravesend, hoping--like a goose--that somebody
really loved me, and would meet me, and beg my pardon; and if he had, I
should have told him it was only my tongue, and my nerves, and things;
my heart was his, and my gratitude. And after all, what do words
signify, when I am a good, obedient girl at bottom? So that is what
you have lost by not condescending to look after me. Fine
love!--Christopher, beg my pardon."

"May I inquire for what?"

"Why, for not understanding me; for not knowing that I should be sorry
the moment you were gone. I took them off the very next day, to please
you."

"Took off whom?--Oh, I understand. You did? Then you ARE a good girl."

"Didn't I tell you I was? A good, obedient girl, and anything but a
flirt."

"I don't say that."

"But I do. Don't interrupt. It is to your good advice I owe my health;
and to love anybody but you, when I owe you my love and my life, I must
be a heartless, ungrateful, worthless--Oh, Christopher, forgive me! No,
no; I mean, beg my pardon."

"I'll do both," said Christopher, taking her in his arms. "I beg your
pardon, and