Miss Rose

“ When Rose huddled into her little attic bed, her eyes were wide open, and her brain active as at noonday. There was no sleep for her then. Lying there in the darkness she lived it all over again; the flutter of flags, the wild voices, the blare of music, the chariots, the wild beasts, the knights and ladies, the surging crowds; but the crowning glory, the pictures which lingered longest in her mind were the splendid and beautiful men, whose naked majesty appealed to her pure wholesome awakening womanhood, with the power of beauty and strength combined, with sex and art both included. ”

“ Ah, Rose! Pretty, foolish Rose—as our older school again would have written—why did you entertain sensuous dreams when you should have been stirring?
“Mi-aow!”
Clout!
Too late, Rose! Too late! That beauteous head—that prize-winning head which from kittenhood upwards has known none other than caress, is now a mark for battering bumps if you do but open those perfect jaws—those prize-winning jaws. Too late, Rose! Too late! Do not cry now, Rose! The ravisher has you. His blood congeals in terror at your plaintive cry. In his brutish panic he will answer it with thuds. Too late, Rose! ”

“ Then Rose was gayer than before. He is one of those people to whom you must allow moods,—when their sun shines, dance, and when their vapors rise, sit in the shadow. Every variation of the atmosphere affects him, though by no means uniformly; and so sensitive is he, that, when connected with you by any intimate rapport, even if but momentary, he almost divines your thoughts. ”

“ How could you do it, Mac?” And a whole face full of smiles broke loose as Rose clapped her hands, looking as if she could dance with sheer delight.
“It did itself, up there among the hills, and here with you, or out alone upon the sea. I could write a heavenly poem this very minute, and put you in as Spring you look like her in that green gown with snowdrops in your bonny hair. Rose, am I getting on a little? Does a hint of fame help me nearer to the prize I'm working for? Is your heart more willing to be won?” ”

“ The opening of a door aroused Rose. Silence Blossom had come in from feeding her chickens, bringing with her a whiff of the crisp, outer air. “Well, Rose,” as she held out her hands to the heat of the fire, “are you a happy girl to-night?”
“Indeed I am. I thought yesterday when I knew that the money was found, that I was happy as I could be; but I am still happier now. To think that no one can call me a pauper any more, or twit me with being a charity child!” ”

“ I dallied with her ruby-nippled titties, firm and springing to the touch, with one hand, while with the other I was trying to make out the entrance to the harbour of love, in order to make room for my masterpiece of nature, that stood reared up between her thighs, and pressed hard against her belly, as if demanding admittance and shelter within the soft and luscious sheath, which nature had so bountifully supplied to a woman, and of which Rose possessed a most lovely specimen. ”

“ Rose found his pretty love again, who was nearly dead with fretting for him, but who quite recovered on his happy return. They took into their hands the government of the vast country which they had delivered from the sway of the giants. Rose and his love got married with the most splendid wedding-feast, and the bride had to dance a great deal; and if they've not died since they're alive still to this very day. ”

“ For a time everything went smoothly, and Rose was a happy girl. The world seemed a beautiful and friendly place, and fulfillment of her brightest dreams appeared to be a possibility. Of course this could not last, and disappointment was inevitable, because young eyes look for a Paradise and weep when they find a workaday world which seems full of care and trouble till one learns to gladden and glorify it with high thoughts and holy living. ”

“ I even remained all night in the wood, in expectation of you, and the queen my mother despatched messengers everywhere, fearing some accident had befallen me."
"The queen, your mother!" exclaimed Rose. "Are you, then, the son of a queen?"
"I have betrayed myself!" said the prince, striking his forehead in a theatrical manner. "Yes, it is true, I have that misfortune. You will now fear me; and what we fear, we never love."
"The wicked alone are to be feared," answered Rose. "I am very glad to hear that you are a king, for I know that you will be my husband." ”

“ As to Rose, he is a fine fellow, certainly he is, and complains that he has no one, all through London, in whom he can confide. O that you were well enough to assist him in London! You are not fit to move of yourself, but you would act through Rose as spirit acts on external matter through a body. ”

“ He uttered the last topic of consolation in a broad, hearty, hilarious tone, like a trombone impregnated with cheerful views of fate.
“Heaven forbid!” cried Rose: “and I will, for even I shall pray for you now. What you will leave her at home? forgive me for not seeing all your worth: of course I knew you were an angel, but I had no idea you were a duck. You are just the man for my sister. She likes to obey: you are all for commanding. So you see. Then she never thinks of herself; any other man but you would impose on her good-nature ”

“ Madame Bernard, for the thousandth time, looked at her curiously. From the shapely foot that tapped restlessly on the rug beneath her white lace gown, to the crown of dusky hair with red- gold lights in it, Rose was made for love—and Madame wondered how she had happened to miss it.
"Aunt Francesca," said Rose, with a whimsical sadness, "do you realise that I'm forty to-day?"
"That's nothing," returned the other, serenely. "Everybody has been forty, or will be, if they live."
"I haven't lived yet," Rose objected. "I've only been alive." ”

“ Rose wept over the letter, and then consigned it to her most secret hiding-place, and returned with unshaken resolution to her usual train of duties. She had lost none of her beauty, for the healthful exercise of necessary and constant employment, preserved the bloom on her cheek, and kept her from giving way to useless repining. ”

“ If I were painting women as they should be, of course no speck or flaw would I permit upon the radiant loveliness of my picture; but women as they are—the darlings!—admit of no such flattery.
Rose reasoned thus:—He must know I love him; or, if he is so blind as not to have seen it, he ought at least to have persevered. Who ever heard of a man giving up a woman in that cool way, because she did not throw herself into his arms, the first moment it pleased him to declare himself? He can't be really in love. ”

“ Every time Rose came home, three times a year, I saw a change in her, but it was not until the winter holidays when she was nearly sixteen that I suddenly realized that she had grown into a beautiful creature, capable of setting men’s hearts beating, and of disturbing lives and affecting destinies. Not, of course, that one has to be beautiful to affect destiny: we can all do that, and all are doing it continually. But pretty women appear to be busier than other persons, even if they are not. ”

“ Rose was so amazed by all this that she sat down trembling a little, not with fear or anger, but a feeling half pleasure, half pain, and a sense of some new power subtle, strong, and sweet that had come into her life. It seemed as if another Mac had taken the place of the one she had known so long an ardent, ambitious man, ready for any work now that the magical moment had come when everything seems possible to love. If hope could work such a marvelous change for a moment, could not happiness do it for a lifetime? ”

“ Little Rose quickly became a comfort, and she was like enough to her mother for me to feel that a benign miracle had been performed and the clock set back twenty years. It is given to few persons to enjoy a second time on earth, and I think of myself as peculiarly fortunate in having twice been the most intimate companion of a child. For my first Rose, I shall always have, I imagine, the tenderer spot; but the second Rose did perhaps more to cheer me, for I was much older when Eustace left her in my charge, and she helped to keep me young. ”

“ They laughed at Rose because she was so much more like what God meant a woman should be than they. A weak-minded, shallow girl would have succumbed to their ridicule, and soon have become like them, but high-spirited Rose only despised them, and gradually sought out and found some companionship with those of the better sort in the large store. ”

“ There was something strange in a young woman, situated as was Rose, preserving so entirely her self-respect, that it encircled her like a halo; and wherever it is so preserved, it invariably commands the respect of others. After the first week or two had passed, Rose Dillon was perfectly undazzled by the splendour with which she was surrounded, and was now engaged in watching for a moment when she could escape from what she knew was splendid misery. ”

“ Poor Rose! In infancy, from the day of her father's death, an unloved, neglected, persecuted child; in childhood, driven to desperation and elopement by the miseries of her home; in girlhood, deceived and abandoned by her lover; now, in womanhood, as friendless and unhappy as if she had not married a wealthy man, and was not living in a luxurious home. Poor Rose! She had lost her sense of honor, or she never would have married Mr. Rockharrt, even for a refuge. ”

“ Rose at the head of his table, so conspicuously and yet so fortuitously his wife, emphasizing her position by her struggles to sustain it, Rose with her embarrassments and solecisms, with her lost innocence in the matter of her aspirates, agonized now by their terrified flight and by her own fluttering efforts at recapture, Rose was not a person that anybody could ignore, least of all her husband. ”

“ Rose comes to meet me. Always on the watch, nothing that goes on in our place escapes her. She sees all who come in and go out. She is redder, fatter, flabbier than ever. Her lips hang more than they did, and she is more and more haunted by obscene ideas. ”

“ A hint of that veiled episode, the Beckley campaign, made Rose pliant, as if she had woven for herself a rod of scorpions. The high ground she had taken; the perfect trust in one; the scorn of any judgment, save her own;—these had vanished from her. Rose, the tameless heroine who had once put her mother’s philosophy in action, was the easiest filly that turbaned matron ever yet drove into the straight road of the world. ”

“ I'm proud of you only don't grow quite out of sight, or even be ashamed to look a woman in the face,” answered Rose, with a gentle pat on the cheek of either bashful young giant, for both were red as peonies, though their boyish eyes were as clear and calm as summer lakes. ”

“ The children stared away at it, but Rose looked into the teacher's eager face. Then her flowers dropped to the ground, the sunlight fell upon her with a richer glow, the dandelions shone like stars in a heaven of green, the birds and the wind sang a wild clear song in the doors of her ears, and her heart swelled with unutterable emotion. She was overpowered by the beauty of the world, as she had been by its immensity that day on the hill top with her father. ”

“ Rose, who knew only these two, naturally dwelt on their changed relations. Her husband! Her dormant love gave an exultant bound. Wave upon wave of emotion beat upon her heart; she sprang to her feet; the door opened, and he came in. He saw her standing faintly outlined in the dark.
“Good-evening,” he said, coming slowly toward her with extended hand; “have you been quite well to-day?” He felt her fingers tremble in his close clasp, and let them fall slowly. “Bob sent you these early violets. Shall I light the gas?” ”

“ Breathing heavily in the sudden sleep that kindly brought a brief oblivion of himself, he lay with flushed cheeks, disordered hair, and at his feet the little rose that never would be fresh and fair again a pitiful contrast now to the brave, blithe young man who went so gaily out that morning to be so ignominiously overthrown at night.
Many girls would have made light of a trespass so readily forgiven by the world, but Rose had not yet learned to offer temptation with a smile and shut her eyes to the weakness that makes a man a brute. ”

“ He took her hand for a moment, in his warm, steady clasp, and subtly, Rose answered to the man—not the violin. She was deathly white when the door closed, and she trembled all the way up-stairs.
When she saw herself in the mirror, she was startled, for, in her ghostly pallor, her deep eyes burned like stars. She knew, now. The woman who had so hungered for Life had suddenly come face to face with its utmost wonder; its highest gift of joy—or pain.
The heart of a man is divided into many compartments, mostly isolated. ”

“ All the following year, as the great stone house progressed to its completion, Rose wrote just such letters to her beloved Yanna as she might easily have written to the most exacting and devoted lover; and neither of the girls imagined that they were in a great measure the overflow of a life restrained on every other side. To the world, Rose made every effort to be the very flower and perfume of serenity and self-poise, and thus to set herself free to her friend was like drawing a good full breath after some restraint had been taken away. ”

“ And so it came to pass, that, on account of this quietly absorbent nature, Rose had grown to her parents' hearts with a peculiar nearness. Eighteen summers had perfected her beauty. The miracle of the growth and perfection of a human body and soul never waxes old; parents marvel at it in every household as if a child had never grown before; and so Olivia and Albert looked on their fair Rose daily with a restful and trusting pride.
At this moment she laid her hand on Father Payson's knee, and said earnestly,--"Ought we to pray for sorrow, then?" ”