and
now her whole spirit had leaped above her woe as with the impetus of
some celestial fluid rarer than all the miseries of earth and of a
necessity surmounting them. She looked out at the night, and it was
to her as if that and the whole world was her jewel-casket, and the
jewels therein were immortal, and infinite in possibilities of giving
and receiving glory and joy. Rose thought of Horace, and a delicious
thrill went over her whole body. Then she thought of Lucy Ayres, and
felt both pity and a sort of angry and contemptuous repulsion. "How a
girl can do so!" she thought.

Intuitively she knew that what she felt for Horace was a far nobler
love than Lucy's. "Love--was it love, after all?" Rose did not know,
but she gave her head a proud shake. "I never would put him in such a
position, and lie about him, just because--" she said to herself.

She did not finish her sentence. Rose was innately modest even as to
her own self-disclosures. Her emotions were so healthy that she had
the power to keep them under the wings of her spirit, both to guard
and hold the superior place. She had a feeling that Lucy Ayres's love
for Horace was in a way an insult to him. After what Sylvia had said,
she had not a doubt as to the falsity of what Lucy had told her
during their drive. She and Lucy had been on the front seat of the
carriage, when Lucy had intimated that there was an understanding
between herself and Horace. She had spoken very low, in French, and
Rose had been obliged to ask her to repeat her words. Immediately
Lucy's mother's head was between the two girls, and the bunch of
violets on her bonnet grazed Rose's ear.

"What are you saying?" she had asked Lucy, sharply. And Lucy had
lied. "I said what a pleasant day it is," she replied.

"You said it in French."

"Yes, mother."

"Next time say it in English," said Mrs. Ayres.

Of course, if Lucy had lied to her mother, she had lied to her. She
had lied in two languages. "She must be a very strange girl," thought
Rose. She resolved that she could not go to see Lucy very often, and
a little pang of regret shot through her. She had been very ready to
love poor Lucy.

Presently, as Rose sat beside the window, she heard footsteps on the
gravel sidewalk outside the front yard, and then a man's figure came
into view, like a moving shadow. She knew the figure was a man
because there was no swing of skirts. Her heart beat fast when the
man opened the front gate and shut i