or a woman very much in love, could tolerate. The "Rose," at that
moment, was neither, and, after a reasonable pause, turned away, saying
quite audibly that it was "too ridiculous for any thing." As she came
back to her dressing-table, it was noticeable that she walked steadily
and erect, without that slight affectation of lameness common to people
with whom bare feet are only an episode. Indeed, it was only four years
ago, that without shoes or stockings, a long-limbed, colty girl, in a
waistless calico gown, she had leaped from the tailboard of her father's
emigrant-wagon when it first drew up at Chemisal Ridge. Certain wild
habits of the "Rose" had outlived transplanting and cultivation.

A knock at the door surprised her. In another moment she had leaped into
bed, and with darkly-frowning eyes, from its secure recesses demanded
"Who's there?"

An apologetic murmur on the other side of the door was the response.

"Why, father!--is that you?"

There were further murmurs, affirmative, deprecatory, and persistent.

"Wait," said the "Rose." She got up, unlocked the door, leaped nimbly
into bed again, and said, "Come."

The door opened timidly. The broad, stooping shoulders, and grizzled
head, of a man past the middle age, appeared: after a moment's
hesitation, a pair of large, diffident feet, shod with canvas slippers,
concluded to follow. When the apparition was complete, it closed the
door softly, and stood there,--a very shy ghost indeed,--with apparently
more than the usual spiritual indisposition to begin a conversation.