's no relation to you,
though you must have got attached to her. I know from her picture what
a sweet girl she must be, and John always said she looked like her own
mother, and Grace was a beautiful woman, if she was my sister."

Rebecca stopped and stared at the other woman in amazement and alarm.
The great handsome blonde creature stood speechless, livid, gasping,
with her hand to her heart, her lips parted in a horrible caricature of
a smile.

"Are you sick!" cried Rebecca, drawing near. "Don't you want me to get
you some water!"

Then Mrs. Dent recovered herself with a great effort. "It is nothing,"
she said. "I am subject to--spells. I am over it now. Won't you come
in, Miss Flint?"

As she spoke, the beautiful deep-rose colour suffused her face, her
blue eyes met her visitor's with the opaqueness of turquoise--with a
revelation of blue, but a concealment of all behind.

Rebecca followed her hostess in, and the boy, who had waited
quiescently, climbed the steps with the trunk. But before they entered
the door a strange thing happened. On the upper terrace close to the
piazza-post, grew a great rose-bush, and on it, late in the season
though it was, one small red, perfect rose.

Rebecca looked at it, and the other woman extended her hand with a
quick gesture. "Don't you pick that rose!" she brusquely cried.

Rebecca drew herself up with stiff dignity.

"I ain't in the habit of picking other folks' roses without leave,"
said she.

As Rebecca spoke she started violently, and lost sight of her
resentment, for something singular happened. Suddenly the rose-bush
was agitated violently as if by a gust of wind, yet it was a remarkably
still day. Not a leaf of the hydrangea standing on the terrace close
to the rose trembled.

"What on earth--" began Rebecca, then she stopped with a gasp at the
sight of the other woman's face. Although a face, it gave somehow the
impression of a desperately clutched hand of secrecy.

"Come in!" said she in a harsh voice, which seemed to come forth from
her chest with no intervention of the organs of speech. "Come into the
house. I'm getting cold out here."

"What makes that rose-bush blow so when their isn't any wind?" asked
Rebecca, trembling with vague horror, yet resolute.

"I don't see as it is blowing," returned the woman calmly. And as she
spoke, indeed, the bush was quiet.

"It was blowing," declared Rebecca.

"It isn't now," said Mrs. Dent. "I can't