line with my hand stretched out," Stephen replied, with meaning in his voice.

Rose blushed under her flowery hat as he led the way to a bench under a
sycamore tree that overhung the water.

She had almost convinced herself that she was as much in love with Stephen
Waterman as it was in her nature to be with anybody. He was handsome in his
big way, kind, generous, temperate, well educated, and well-to-do. No fault
could be found with his family, for his mother had been a teacher, and his
father, though a farmer, a college graduate. Stephen himself had had one year
at Bowdoin, but had been recalled, as the head of the house, when his father
died. That was a severe blow; but his mother's death, three years after, was a
grief never to be quite forgotten. Rose, too, was the child of a gently bred
mother, and all her instincts were refined. Yes; Stephen in himself satisfied
her in all the larger wants of her nature, but she had an unsatisfied hunger
for the world,--the world of Portland, where her cousins lived; or, better
still, the world of Boston, of which she heard through Mrs. Wealthy Brooks,
whose nephew Claude often came to visit her in Edgewood. Life on a farm a mile
and a half distant from post-office and stores; life in the house with Rufus,
who was rumored to be somewhat wild and unsteady,--this prospect seemed a
trifle dull and uneventful to the trivial part of her, though to the better
part it was enough. The better part of her loved Stephen Waterman, dimly
feeling the richness of his nature, the tenderness of his affection, the
strength of his character. Rose was not destitute either of imagination or
sentiment. She did not relish this constant weighing of Stephen in the
balance: he was too good to be weighed and considered. She longed to be
carried out of herself on a wave of rapturous assent, but something seemed to
hold her back,--some seed of discontent with the man's environment and
circumstances, some germ of longing for a gayer, brighter, more varied life.
No amount of self-searching or argument could change the situation. She always