he reached his house, he went straight to his library, hoping to find
a letter there, telling him of her welfare. But letter there was none,
and with a feeling of disappointment he started to the parlor. The
door was ajar and he caught glimpses of a cheerfully blazing fire
within the grate. The shutters, too, were open and the curtains were
put back just as they used to be when _she was there_. It seemed like
the olden time, and with spirits somewhat enlivened he advanced into
the room. His favorite chair stood before the fire, and so near to it
that her head was leaning on its arm, sat a young girl. Her back was
turned toward him, but he knew that form full well, and joyfully he
cried: "Rosamond, how came you here?"

Amid her smiles and tears, Rosamond tempted to tell him the story of
her grievances. She was homesick, and she could not learn half so much
at the Atwater Seminary as at home--then, too, she hated the strait-
jacket rules, and hated the lady-boarder, who pretended to be sick,
and wouldn't let the school-girls breathe, especially Rosamond Leyton,
for whom she seemed to have conceived a particular aversion.

Pleased as Mr. Browning was to have Rosamond with him again, he did
not quite like her reasons for coming back, and he questioned her
closely as to the cause of her sudden return.

"I shouldn't have come, perhaps," said Rosamond, "if that sick woman
hadn't been so nervous and disagreeable. She paid enormous sums for
her board, and so Mrs. Lindsey would hardly let us breathe for fear of
disturbing her. My room was over hers, and I had to take off my shoes
and walk on tiptoe, and even then she complained of me, saying I was
rude and noisy, when I tried so hard to be still. I made some hateful
remark about her in the hall, which she overheard, and when Mrs.