reins, and aside from superintending her work, built many castles of
the future when her protegee would be a full grown woman and her
master still young and handsome!




CHAPTER IV

ROSAMOND'S EDUCATION


One year has passed away since Mrs. Van Vechten departed for the
South, and up the locust lined avenue which leads to Riverside, the
owner of the place is slowly riding. It is not pleasant going home
tonight, and so he lingers by the way, wondering why it is that the
absence of a _child_ should make so much difference in one's feelings!
During the year Rosamond had recited her lessons to him, but with many
others he fancied no girl's education could be finished unless she
were _sent away_--and two weeks before the night of which we write he
had taken her himself to Atwater Seminary, a distance of more than two
hundred miles, and then, with a sense of desolation for which he could
not account, he had returned to his home, which was never so lonely
before. There was no merry voice within the walls,--no tripping feet
upon the stairs,--no soft, white hand to bathe his forehead when
suffering from real or fancied headaches,--no slippers waiting by his
chair,--no flowers on the mantel,--no bright face at the window,--no
Rosamond at the door.

Of all this was he thinking that November afternoon, and when at last