after, but for those chemicals. Ah! I see, she said nothing about
them, because they were Edward's. They were some parcels for his
experiments, gun cotton and the like, which were lying in the window
till he had time to take them upstairs. We had all been so long
threatened with being blown up by his experiments that we had grown
callous and careless, and it served us right!" she added, stroking
the child's face as it looked at her, earnest to glean fresh
fragments of the terrible half-known tale of the past. "Yes, Rosie,
when you go and keep house for papa on the top of the Oural
Mountains, or wherever it may be, you are to remember that if Aunt
Ermine had not been in a foolish, inattentive mood, and had taken his
dangerous goods out of the way, she might have been trotting to
church now like other people. But poor Ailie has always helped
herself to the whole blame, and if every childish fit of temper were
the root of such qualities, what a world we should have here!"

"Ah! no wonder she is devoted to you."

"The child was not fifteen, had never known cross or care, but from
that moment she never was out of my room if it was possible to be in;
and when nurse after nurse was fairly worn out, because I could not
help being so distressing, there was always that poor child, always
handy and helpful, growing to be the chief dependence, and looking so
piteously imploring whatever was tried, that it really helped me to
go through with it. Poor Ailie," she added with an odd turn of
playfulness, "I always fancied those frowns of anxiety made her
eyebrows grow together. And ever since we came here, we know how she
has worked away for her old cinder and her small Rosebud, don't we?"
she added, playfully squeezing the child's cheeks up into a more
budding look, hiding deeper and more overcoming feelings by the