soon."

"In a week, then?"

"I--I don't know. I'll see."

"Make it very soon, my dear, will you?"

"Yes--just as soon as I can."

"Is that a promise?"

"Yes--a promise."

"Then kiss me."

[Sidenote: Half Afraid]

The white fire burned in Rosemary's blood; her heart beat hard with
rapturous pain. Upon the desert wastes that stretched endlessly before
her, Spring had come with the old, immortal beauty, and more than mortal
joy. Half afraid of her own ecstasy, she broke away from him and ran
home.

XXIV

The Minister's Call

[Sidenote: Just Wait]

"Rosemary!"

Grandmother called imperiously, but there was no answer. "Rosemary!" she
cried, shrilly.

"She ain't here, Ma," said Matilda. "I reckon she's gone out
somewheres."

"Did you ever see the beat of it? She's getting high and mighty all of a
sudden. This makes twice lately that she's gone out without even tellin'
us, let alone askin' whether she could go or not. Just wait till she
comes back."

Matilda laughed in her most aggravating manner. "I reckon we'll have to
wait," she retorted, "as long as we don't know where she's gone or when
she's comin' back."

"Just wait," repeated Grandmother, ominously. "I'll tell her a thing or
two. You just see if I don't!"

The fires of her wrath smouldered dully, ready to blaze forth at any
moment. Matilda waited with the same sort of pleasurable excitement
which impels a child to wait under the open window of a house in which
there is good reason to believe that an erring playmate is about to
receive punishment.

[Sidenote: Tense Silence]

"What's she been doin' all day?" Grandmother demanded.

"Nothin' more than usual, I guess," Matilda replied. "She did up the
work this morning and got dinner, and washed the dishes and went to the
store, and when she come back, she was up in the attic for a spell, and
then she went out without sayin' where she was goin'."

"In the attic? What was she doin' in the attic?"

"I don't know, I'm sure."

"She's got no call to go to the attic. If I want her to go up there,
I'll tell her so. This is my house."

"Yes," returned Matilda, with a sigh. "I've heard tell that it was."

"Humph!" grunted Grandmother.

For an hour or more there was silence, not peaceful, but tense, for
Grandmother was thinking of things she might say to the wayward
Rosemary. Then the culprit came in, cheerfully singing to herself, and
unmindful of impending judgment.

"Rosemary!"