When the party arrived at the hotel and Aunt Sophy was informed of what had happened, her excitement was great. The children were caressed and scolded in a breath. After a while, however, the enormity of their behavior was dwelt upon by all their guardians together.

“I was saying, ma’am, that I couldn’t never take Miss Amy and Master Johnny near to that lake again. Oh, I couldn’t! The hotel garden, I couldn’t go farther, not with any peace of mind.”

“You hear what nurse says, children,” said Aunt Sophy; “she is quite right. It would be impossible for me to allow you to go out again unless you made me a promise, oh, a faithful promise.”

Amy was tired with the long walk after all the excitement; and she was always an impressionable little thing. She began to cry and protest that she never meant any harm, that the boat was so pretty, and that she was sure it was fastened and could not get away. But Johnny held his ground. “I could have doned it myself,” he said; “I know how to row. Nobody wasn’t wanted—if that fellow had let us alone.”

“Where is the gentleman, Rosalind?” cried Mrs. Lennox. “Oh, how could you be so ungrateful as to let him go without asking where he was to be found? To think he should have saved those precious children and not to know where to find him to thank him! Oh, children, only think, if you had been brought home all cold and stiff, and laid out there never to give any more trouble, never to go home again, never to speak to your poor, distracted auntie, or to poor Rosalind, or to— Oh, my darlings! What should I have done if you had been brought home to me like that? It would have killed me. I should never more have held up my head again.”

At this terrible prospect, and at the sight of Aunt Sophy’s tears, Amy flung her arms as far as they would go round that portly figure, and hid her sobs upon her aunt’s bosom. Johnny began to yield; he grew pale, and his big eyes veiled themselves with a film of tears. To think of lying there cold and stiff, as Aunt Sophy said, daunted the little hero. “I could have doned it,” he said, but faltered, and his mouth began to quiver.

“And Uncle John,” cried Mrs. Lennox, “and Rex! what would you have said never, never to see them again?”

Johnny, in his own mind, piled up the agony still higher—and the rabbits, and the pigeons, and his own pet guinea-pig, and his pony! He flung himself into Aunt Sophy’s lap, which was so large, and so soft, and so secure.

This scene moved Rosalind both to tears and laughter; for it was a little pathetic as well as funny, and the girl was overstrained. She would have liked to fling herself, too, into arms of love like Aunt Sophy’s, which were full—arms as loving, but more strong. The children did not want their mother, but Rosalind did. Her mind was moved by sentiments more complex than Johnny’s emotions, but she had no one to have recourse to. The afternoon brightness had faded, and the gray of twilight filled the large room, making everything indistinct. At this crisis the door opened and somebody was ushered into the room, some one who came forward with a hesitating, yet eager, step. “I hope I may be permitted, though I am without introduction, to ask if the children have taken any harm,” he said.

“It is Mr. Everard, Aunt Sophy.” Rosalind retired to the background, her heart beating loudly. She wanted to look on, to see what appearance he presented to a spectator, to know how he would speak, what he would say.

“Oh!” cried Mrs. Lennox, standing up with a child in each arm, “it is the gentleman who saved my darlings—it is your deliverer, children. Oh, sir, what can I say to you; how can I even thank you? You have saved my life too, for I should never have survived if anything had happened to them.”

He stood against the light of one of the windows, unconscious of the eager criticism with which he was being watched. Perhaps the bow he made was a little elaborate, but his voice was soft and refined. “I am very glad if I have been of any service,” he said.

“Oh, service! it is far, far beyond that. I hope Rosalind said something to you; I hope she told you how precious they were, and that we could never, never forget.”

“There is nothing to thank me for, indeed. It was more a joke than anything else; the little things were in no danger so long as they sat still. I was scarcely out of my depth, not much more than wading all the time.”

“Aunt Sophy, that is what I told you,” said Johnny, withdrawing his head from under her arm. “I could have doned it myself.”

“Oh, hush, Johnny! Whatever way it was done, what does that matter? Here they are, and they might have been at the bottom of the lake. And you risked your own life or your health, which comes to the same thing! Pray sit down, Mr. Everard. If you are here,” Aunt Sophy went on, loosing her arms from the children and sitting down with the full purpose of enjoying a talk, “as I am, for the waters, to get drenched and to walk home in your wet clothes must have been madness—that is, if you are here for your health.”

“I am here for the baths, but a trifle like that could harm no one.”

“Oh, I trust not—oh, I anxiously trust not! It makes my heart stand still even to think of it. Are you getting any benefit? It is for rheumatism, I suppose? And what form does yours take? One sufferer is interested in another,” Mrs. Lennox said.

He seemed to wince a little, and threw a glance behind into the dimness to look for Rosalind. To confess to rheumatism is not interesting. He said at last, with a faint laugh, “I had rheumatic fever some years ago. My heart is supposed to be affected, that is all; the water couldn’t hurt that organ; indeed I think it did good.”

Rosalind, in the background, knew that this was meant for her; but her criticism was disarmed by a touch of humorous sympathy for the poor young fellow, who had expected, no doubt, to appear in the character of a hero, and was thus received as a fellow-sufferer in rheumatism. But Mrs. Lennox naturally saw nothing ludicrous in the situation. “Mine,” she said, “is in the joints. I get so stiff, and really to rise up after I have been sitting down for any time is quite an operation. I suppose you don’t feel anything of that sort? To be sure, you are so much younger—but sufferers have a fellow-feeling. And when did you begin your baths? and how many do you mean to take? and do you think they are doing you any good? It is more than I can say just at present, but they tell me that it often happens so, and that it is afterwards that one feels the good result.”

“I know scarcely any one here,” said the young man, “so I have not been able to compare notes; but I am not ill, only taking the baths to please a—relation, who, perhaps,” he said with a little laugh, “takes more interest in me than I deserve.”

“Oh, I am sure not that!” said Aunt Sophy, with enthusiasm. “But, indeed, it is very nice of you to pay so much attention to your relation’s wishes. You will never repent putting yourself to trouble for her peace of mind, and I am sure I sympathize with her very much in the anxiety she must be feeling. When the heart is affected it is always serious. I hope, Mr. ——”

“Everard,” he said with a bow, once more just a little, as the critic behind him felt, too elaborate for the occasion.

“I beg your pardon. Rosalind did tell me; but I was so much agitated, almost too much to pay any attention. I hope, Mr. Everard, that you are careful to keep yourself from all agitation. I can’t think the shock of plunging into the lake could be good for you. Oh, I feel quite sure it couldn’t be good. I hope you will feel no ill results afterwards. But excitement of any sort, or agitation, that is the worst thing for the heart. I hope, for your poor dear relation’s sake, who must be so anxious, poor lady, that you will take every care.”

He gave a glance behind Mrs. Lennox to the shadow which stood between him and the window. “That depends,” he said, “rather on other people than on myself. You may be sure I should prefer to be happy and at ease if it were in my power.”

“Ah, well!” said Aunt Sophy, “that is very true. Of course our happiness depends very much upon other people. And you have done a great deal for mine, Mr. Everard. It would not have done me much good to have people telling me to be cheerful if my poor little darlings had been at the bottom of the lake.” Here Aunt Sophy stopped and cried a little, then went on. “You are not, I think, living at our hotel, but I hope you will stay and dine with us. Oh, yes, I cannot take any refusal. We may have made your acquaintance informally, but few people can have so good a reason for wishing to know you. This is my niece, Miss Trevanion, Mr. Everard; the little children you saved are my brother’s children—the late Mr. Trevanion of Highcourt.”

Rosalind listened with her heart beating high. Was it possible that he would receive the introduction as if he had known nothing of her before? He rose and turned towards her, made once more that slightly stiff, too elaborate bow, and was silent. No, worse than that, began to say something about being happy to make—acquaintance.

“Aunt Sophy,” said Rosalind, stepping forward, “you are under a mistake. Mr. Everard knows us well enough. I met him before we left Highcourt.” And then she, too, paused, feeling with sudden embarrassment that there was a certain difficulty in explaining their meetings, a difficulty of which she had not thought. It was he now who had the advantage which she had felt to lie with herself.

“It is curious how things repeat themselves,” he said. “I had once the pleasure of recovering a boat that had floated away from Miss Trevanion on the pond at Highcourt, but I could not have ventured to claim acquaintance on so small an argument as that.”

Rosalind was silenced—her mind began to grow confused. It was not true that this was all, and yet it was not false. She said nothing; if it were wrong, she made herself an accomplice in the wrong; and Aunt Sophy’s exclamations soon put an end to the incident.

“So you had met before!” she cried. “So you know Highcourt! Oh, what a very small world this is!—everybody says so, but it is only now and then that one is sensible. But you must tell us all about it at dinner. We dine at the table d’hÔte, if you don’t mind. It is more amusing, and I don’t like to shut up Rosalind with only an old lady like me for her company. You like it too? Oh, well, that is quite nice. Will you excuse us now, Mr. Everard, while we prepare for dinner? for that is the dressing-bell just ringing, and they allow one so little time. Give me your hand, dear, to help me up. You see I am quite crippled,” Mrs. Lennox said, complacently, forgetting how nimbly she had sprung from her chair with a child under each arm to greet their deliverer. She limped a little as she went out of the room on Rosalind’s arm. She was quite sure that her rheumatism made her limp; but sometimes she forgot that she had rheumatism, which is a thing that will happen in such cases now and then.

The room was still dark. It was not Mrs. Lennox’s custom to have it lighted before dinner, and when the door closed upon the ladies the young man was left alone. His thoughts were full of triumph and satisfaction, not unmingled with praise. He had attained by the chance of a moment what he had set his heart upon, he said to himself; for years he had haunted Highcourt for this end; he had been kept cruelly and unnaturally (he thought) from realizing it. Those who might have helped him, without any harm to themselves, had refused and resisted his desire, and compelled him to relinquish it. And now in a moment he had attained what he had so desired. Introduced under the most flattering circumstances, with every prepossession in his favor, having had it in his power to lay under the deepest obligation the family, the guardians as well as the girl who, he said to himself, was the only girl he had ever loved. Did he love Rosalind? He thought so, as Mrs. Lennox thought she had rheumatism. Both were serious enough—and perhaps this young stranger was not clearly aware how much it was he saw in Rosalind besides herself. He saw in her a great deal that did not meet the outward eye, though he also saw the share of beauty she possessed, magnified by his small acquaintance with women of her kind. He saw her sweet and fair and desirable in every way, as the truest lover might have done. And there were other advantages which such a lover as Roland Hamerton would have scorned to take into consideration, which Rivers—not able at his more serious age to put them entirely out of his mind—yet turned from instinctively as if it were doing her a wrong to remember them, but which this young man realized vividly and reminded himself of with rising exhilaration. With such a wife what might he not do? Blot out everything that was against him, attain everything he had ever dreamed of, secure happiness, advancement, wealth. He moved from window to window of the dim room, waiting for the ladies, in a state of exaltation indescribable. He had been raised at once from earth to heaven. There was not a circumstance that was not in his favor. He was received by them as an intimate, he was to be their escort, to be introduced by them, to form one of their party; and Rosalind! Rosalind! she was the only girl whom he had ever loved.