nothing, but when she met her brother at the breakfast table, there
was an ominous frown upon her face, and the moment they were alone,
she gave him her opinion without reserve. But Mr. Browning was firm.
"He should have something to live for," he said, "and Heaven only knew
the lonely hours he passed with no object in which to be interested.
Her family, though unfortunate, are highly respectable," he added,
"and if I can make her a useful ornament in society, it is my duty to
do so."

Mrs. Van Vechten knew how useless it would be to remonstrate with him,
and she gave up the contest, mentally resolving that "Ben should not
pass his college vacations there."

When the villagers learned that Mr. Browning intended to educate
Rosamond and treat her as his equal, they ascribed it wholly to the
influence of his sister, who, of course, had suggested to him an act
which seemed every way right and proper. They did not know how the
lady opposed it, nor how, for many days, she maintained a cold reserve
toward the young girl, who strove in various ways to conciliate her,
and at last succeeded so far that she not only accepted her services
at her toilet, but even asked of her sometimes to read her to sleep in
the afternoon, a process neither long nor tedious, for Mrs. Van
Vechten was not literary, and by the time the second page was reached
she usually nodded her full acquiescence to the author's opinions, and
Rosamond was free to do as she pleased.

One afternoon when Mrs. Van Vechten was fast asleep, and Rosamond deep
in the "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner," (the former having selected
that poem as an opiate because of its musical jingle,) there was the
sound of a bounding step upon the stairs, accompanied by the stirring