"Why, yes," Rosamond began, and the face upon the pillow assumed a
dark and almost fiendish expression. "Why, yes, I love him as a
brother, but nothing else. I respect him for his goodness, but it
would be impossible to love him with a marrying love."

The fierce expression passed away, and Miss Porter was about to speak
when Anna Lawrie sent for Rosamond, who excused herself and left the
room, thinking that, after all, she should like her old enemy of
Atwater Seminary very much.

Meantime "the enemy" had buried her face in her pillows, and clenching
her blue veined fists, struck at the empty air, just as she would have
struck at the owner of Riverside had he been standing there.

"Fine time he has of it," she muttered, "living there with her, and
she so young and beautiful. I could have strangled her--the jade!--
when she sat there talking so enthusiastically to _me, of him!_ And
she loves him, too. I know she does, though she don't know it herself.
But I must be wary. I must seem to like this girl--must win her
confidence--so I can probe her heart to its core, and if I find they
love each other!"--she paused a moment, then grinding her teeth
together, added slowly, as if the sound of her voice were musical and
sweet, "Marie Porter will be avenged!"

That strange woman could be a demon or an angel, and as the latter
character suited her just now, Rosamond, on her return to her room,
found her all gentleness and love.

That night, when all around the house was still, the full moon shone