Rose hesitated a moment. "Do you really mean that?"

"You may judge whether I choose such a time to joke."

"Good-bye, then," said the girl.

"Good-bye."

Rose quitted the room successfully enough; but on the other side of
the door, on the landing, she sank into a chair and buried her face
in her hands. She had burst into tears, and she sobbed there for a
moment, trying hard to recover herself, so as to go downstairs
without showing any traces of emotion, passing before the servants
and again perhaps before aunt Julia. Mrs. Tramore was too old to
cry; she could only drop her knitting and, for a long time, sit with
her head bowed and her eyes closed.

Rose had reckoned justly with her aunt Julia; there were no footmen,
but this vigilant virgin was posted at the foot of the stairs. She
offered no challenge however; she only said: "There's some one in
the parlour who wants to see you." The girl demanded a name, but
Miss Tramore only mouthed inaudibly and winked and waved. Rose
instantly reflected that there was only one man in the world her aunt
would look such deep things about. "Captain Jay?" her own eyes
asked, while Miss Tramore's were those of a conspirator: they were,
for a moment, the only embarrassed eyes Rose had encountered that
day. They contributed to make aunt Julia's further response evasive,
after her niece inquired if she had communicated in advance with this
visitor. Miss Tramore merely said that he had been upstairs with her