how thou didst mourn and cry to me, 'Take me
ashore, Myles, take me ashore, that I may breathe sweet air and live.'
So I lapped thee in blankets and brought thee, to-morrow is a se'nnight.
Like you not this sweet new dwelling?"

"Well enow; but sweet air will not make me live if the time hath come
for me to die." And the sick girl smiled wanly, inscrutably, the smile
of one who knows what he will not say.

The face of the fearless soldier grew white with terror, and almost
angrily he replied,--

"Hush, child! Thy time to die hath not come. Never think it, for it
shall not be."

"Nay, Myles, thou canst not daunten Death with thy stern voice and
masterful eye, though thou canst quell a score of other foes with one
glance."

And Rose, moving her frail little hand toward the sinewy fist clenched
upon the bed-covering, slid a finger within its grasp, and went softly
on with a pathetic ring of gayety in her voice,--

"I was dreaming, too, of home, mine own old home. I was gathering
cowslips in the meadow at St. Mary's, and mother stood by with little
Maudlin in her arms. They smiled, both of them, ah how sweetly they
smiled upon me, and I filled my pinafore with the cowslips, soft, cool,
wet cowslips,--I feel them in my hand now, so cool, so wet! Myles, I
fain would have those cowslips, may I not?"

"Child! Child! Thou 'lt break my heart!"

"Mother and Maudlin both died the year I saw thee first, dost remember,
Myles?"

"Try to sleep a little, my darling. I will say thee a psalm, or perhaps
one of those old Manx ballads thou didst use to lilt so lightly."

"Mistress White says they are ungodly, and a snare of Satan," replied
Rose dreamily, and before Myles could utter the wrathful comment that
quivered upon his lips she went on,--

"It was across her grave I saw thee, dear, dost mind thee of that hour?"

"Thy mother's grave? ay, I mind me."

"Yes, thou camest with thy cousin Barbara to seek thy grandsire's
gravestone and to search out the muniments of thy race. Thou 'lt never
lay hands on that inheritance, Myles."

"I care not, so thou wilt get strong and well again, my Rose, my Rose!"
And with a groan but half driven back upon his heart, the soldier
turned his head aside and set his teeth upon his trembling lip. But
Rose, more alive in the past than the present, rambled on in her sweet,
weak voice,--

"'Not only this wild hunting ground and ruined lodge where we abide, but
many a fair manor in England, an