Rosemary peered into the letter box and saw that The Household Guardian was there. On one Thursday it had failed to appear and she had been unable to convince Grandmother of her entire innocence in the matter. Even on the following day, when she brought it home, in the original wrapping, she felt herself regarded with secret suspicion. As it never had failed to come on Thursday, why should it, unless Rosemary, for some reason best known to herself, had tampered with the United States Mail?

There was also a letter, and Rosemary waited eagerly for the postmaster to finish weighing out two pounds of brown sugar and five cents' worth of tea for old Mrs. Simms. She pressed her nose to the glass, and squinted, but the address eluded her. Still, she was sure it was for her, and, very probably, from Alden, whom she had not seen for ten days.

She felt a crushing sense of disappointment when she saw that it was not from Alden, but was addressed in an unfamiliar hand. Regardless of the deference she was accustomed to accord a letter, she tore it open hastily and read:

"Affectionately, your

"Mother."

The words were formal enough, and the quaint stateliness of the handwriting conveyed its own message of reserve and distance but the signature thrilled her through and through. "Mother!" she repeated, in a whisper. She went out of the post-office blindly, with the precious missive tightly clasped in her trembling hand.

Would she go? Of course she would, even though it meant facing Grandmother, Aunt Matilda, and all the dogs of war.

As the first impulse faded, she became more cautious, and began to consider ways and means. It was obviously impossible to wear brown gingham or brown alpaca to a tea-party. That meant that she must somehow get her old white muslin down from the attic, iron it, mend it, and freshen it up as best she could. She had no doubt of her ability to do it, for both old ladies were sound sleepers, and Rosemary had learned to step lightly, in bare feet, upon secret errands around the house at night.

But how could she hope to escape, unobserved, on Saturday afternoon? And, even if she managed to get away, what of the inevitable return? Why not, for once, make a bold declaration of independence, and say, calmly: "Grandmother, I am going to Mrs. Marsh's Saturday afternoon at four, and I am going to wear my white dress." Not "May I go?" or "May I wear it?" but "I am going," and "I am going to wear it."

At the thought Rosemary shuddered and her soul quailed within her. She knew that she would never dare to do it. At the critical moment her courage would fail her, and she would stay at home. Perhaps she could wear the brown gingham if it were fresh and clean, and she pinned at her throat a bow of the faded pink ribbon she had found in her mother's trunk in the attic. And, if it should happen to rain Saturday, or even look like rain, so much the better. Anyhow, she would go, even in the brown gingham. So much she decided upon.

Yet, with all her heart, she longed for the white dress, the only thing she had which even approached daintiness. An old saying came back to her in which she had found consolation many times before. "When an insurmountable obstacle presents itself, sometimes there is a way around it." And, again, "Take one step forward whenever there is a foothold and trust to God for the next."

That night, at supper, Aunt Matilda electrified Grandmother with a bit of news which she had jealously kept to herself all day.

"The milkman was telling me," she remarked, with an assumed carelessness which deceived no one, "that there's company up to Marshs'."

Grandmother dropped her knife and fork with a sharp clatter. "You don't tell me!" she cried. "Who in creation is it?"

"I was minded to tell you before," Aunt Matilda resumed, with tantalising deliberation, "but you've had your nose in that fool paper all day, and whenever I spoke to you you told me not to interrupt. Literary folks is terrible afraid of bein' interrupted, I've heard, so I let you alone."

"I didn't know it was anything important," murmured Grandmother, apologetically.

"How could you know," questioned Matilda, logically, "before I'd told you what it was?"

There being no ready answer to this, Grandmother responded with a snort, which meant much or little, as one might choose. A dull red burned on her withered cheeks and she had lost interest in her supper. Only Rosemary was calm.

"As I was sayin'," Matilda went on, after an aggravating silence, "there's company up to Marshs'."

"Seems to me," Grandmother grunted, "that she'd better be payin' up the calls she owes in the neighbourhood than entertainin' strangers." This shaft pierced a vulnerable spot in Matilda's armour of self-esteem, for she still smarted under Madame Marsh's neglect.

"The milkman says it's a woman. Her name's Mis' Lee. She come a week ago and last Saturday she was to the post-office, and up the river-road all the afternoon in that old phaeton with young Marsh."

Rosemary's heart paused for a moment, then resumed its beat.

"She's a play-actin' person, he says, or at any rate she looks like one, which amounts to the same thing. She's brought four trunks with her—one respectable trunk, same as anybody might have, one big square trunk that looks like a dog-house, and another big trunk that a person could move into if there wasn't no other house handy, and another trunk that was packed so full that it had bulged out on all sides but one, and when Jim and Dick took it up into the attic there wasn't but one side they could set it on. And whiles they was findin' a place to set it, she and young Marsh was laughin' down in the hall."

"Who is she?" demanded Grandmother. "Where did she come from? How long is she goin' to stay? Where'd Mis' Marsh get to know her?"

"The milkman's wife was over last Monday," Matilda continued, "to help with the washin', and she says she never see such clothes in all her born days nor so many of 'em. They was mostly lace, and she had two white petticoats in the wash. The stocking was all silk, and she said she never see such nightgowns. They was fine enough for best summer dresses, and all lace, and one of 'em had a blue satin bow on it, and what was strangest of all was that there wa'n't no place to get into 'em. They was made just like stockin's with no feet to 'em, and if she wore 'em, she'd have to crawl in, either at the bottom or the top. She said she never see the beat of those nightgowns."

"Do tell!" ejaculated Grandmother.

"And her hair looks as if she ain't never combed it since the day she was born. The milkman says it looks about like a hen's nest and is pretty much the same colour. He see her on the porch for a minute, and all he could look at was that hair. And when he passed 'em on the river-road after they come from the post-office, he couldn't see her hair at all, cause she had on a big hat tied on with some thin light blue stuff. He reckoned maybe her hair was a wig."

"I'd know whether 'twas a wig or not, if I saw it once," Grandmother muttered. "There ain't nobody that can fool me about false hair."

"I guess you ain't likely to see it," retorted Matilda, viciously. "All we'll ever hear about her'll be from the milk folks."

"Maybe I could see her," ventured Rosemary, cautiously. "I could put on my best white dress and go to see Mrs. Marsh, to-morrow or next day, after I get the work done up. I could find out who she was and all about her, and come back and tell you."

For an instant the stillness was intense, then both women turned to her. "You!" they said, scornfully, in the same breath.

"Yes," said Grandmother, after an impressive pause, "I reckon you'll be puttin' on your best dress and goin' up to Marshs' to see a play-actin' woman."

"You'd have lots to do," continued Aunt Matilda, "goin' to see a woman what ain't seen fit to return a call your Aunt made on her more'n five years ago."

"Humph!" Grandmother snorted.

"The very idea," exclaimed Aunt Matilda.

What had seemed to Rosemary like an open path had merely led to an insurmountable stone wall. She shrugged her shoulders good-humouredly. "Very well," she said, "I'm sure I don't care. Suit yourselves."

She began to clear away the supper dishes, for, though the others had eaten little, they had apparently finished. Out in the kitchen, she sang as she worked, and only a close observer would have detected a tremor in the sweet, untrained soprano. "Anyway," thought Rosemary, "I'll put on the flat-irons."

The fire she had built would not go out for some hours. She had used coal ruinously in order to heat the oven for a special sort of tea-biscuit of which Grandmother was very fond. While the fire was going out, it would heat the irons, and then——

"One step forward whenever there is a foothold," she said to herself, "and trust to God for the next."

That night, as fortune would have it, Grandmother and Aunt Matilda elected to sit up late, solving a puzzle in The Household Guardian for which a Mission rocker was offered as a prize. It was long past ten o'clock when they gave it up.

"I dunno," yawned Aunt Matilda, "as I'm partial to rockers."

"Leastways," continued Grandmother, rising to put her spectacles on the mantel, "to the kind they give missionaries. I've seen the things they send missionaries more'n once, in my time."

By eleven, the household slept, except Rosemary. As silently as a ghost, she made her way to the attic, brought down the clean white muslin, and, with irons scarcely hot enough, pressed it into some semblance of freshness. She hung it in her closet, under the brown alpaca of two seasons past, and went to sleep, peacefully.

Bright and early the next morning the Idea presented itself. Why not put on the white gown with one of the brown ones over it and take off the brown one when she got there? Mrs. Marsh would understand.

Rosemary laughed happily as she climbed out of bed. Surely there was more than one way of cheating Fate! That afternoon, while the others took their accustomed "forty winks," she brought down the faded pink ribbon that had been her mother's. That night she discovered that neither of the brown ginghams would go over the white muslin, as they had shrunk when they were washed, but that the alpaca would. There was not even a bit of white showing beneath the skirt, as she had discovered by tilting her mirror perilously forward.

She was up early Saturday morning, and baked and swept and dusted to such good purpose that, by three o'clock, there was nothing more that anyone could think of for her to do until it was time to get supper. She had put the white gown on under the alpaca when she dressed in the morning, as it was the only opportunity of which she was at all sure.

Grandmother and Aunt Matilda were nodding in their chairs. The kitchen clock struck the half hour. Finally, Rosemary spoke.

"Is there anything either of you would like me to get at the store?"

"No," said Grandmother.

"No," echoed Aunt Matilda. Then she added: "Why? Were you thinkin' of goin' out?"

"I thought I would," said Rosemary, with a yawn, "if there was nothing more for me to do. It's such a nice day, and I'd like a breath of fresh air."

For a moment, Fate hung in the balance, then Grandmother said, generously: "Go on, Rosemary, and get all the fresh air you want. You've worked better'n common to-day."

"I should think you'd be tired enough to stay home and rest," Aunt Matilda commented, fretfully, but the door had closed on the last word, and Rosemary was gone.

The beautiful words sang themselves through her memory as she sped on. She had forgotten about the guest for the moment, remembering with joy that almost hurt, the one word "Mother," and the greater, probable joy that overshadowed it. Of course he would be there! Why not, when he knew she was coming to tea—and when they had a guest, too? The girl's heart beat tumultuously as she neared the house, for through it, in great tides, surged fear, and ecstasy—and love.

Madame herself opened the door. "Come in, dear!"

"Oh, Mrs. Marsh! Please, just a minute!"

"Mrs. Marsh again? I thought we were mother and daughter. Edith!" she called. Then, in the next moment, Rosemary found herself in the living-room, offering a rough, red hand to an exquisite creature who seemed a blurred mass of pale green and burnished gold, redolent of violets, and who murmured, in a beautifully modulated contralto: "How do you do, Miss Starr! I am very glad to meet you."

The consciousness of the white gown underneath filled Rosemary's eyes with tears of mortification, which Madame hastened to explain. "It's raw and cold still," she said, "in spite of the calendar. These keen Spring winds make one's eyes water. Here, my dear, have a cup of tea."

Rosemary took the cup with hands that trembled, and, while she sipped the amber fragrance of it, struggled hard for self-possession. Madame ignored her for the moment and chatted pleasantly with Edith. Then Alden came in and shook hands kindly with Rosemary, though he had been secretly annoyed when he learned she was coming. Afterward, he had a bad quarter of an hour with himself while he endeavoured to find out why. At last he had shifted the blame to Edith, deciding that she would think Rosemary awkward and countrified, and that it would not be pleasant for him to stand by and see it.

However, the most carping critic could have found no fault with Edith's manner. If she felt any superiority, she did not show it. She accorded to Rosemary the same perfect courtesy she showed Madame, and, apparently, failed to notice that the girl had not spoken since the moment of introduction.

She confined the conversation wholly to things Rosemary must have been familiar with—the country, the cool winds that sometimes came when one thought it was almost Summer, the perfect blend of Madame's tea, the quaint Chinese pot, and the bad manners of the canary, who seemed to take a fiendish delight in scattering the seed that was given him to eat.

Rosemary merely sat in the corner, tried to smile, and said, as required, "Yes," or "No." Alden, pitying her from the depths of his heart and yet secretly ashamed, tried unsuccessfully, now and then, to draw her into the conversation.

Edith drained her cup, affected disappointment at finding no stray leaves by which she might divine the future, then went to Rosemary, and took the empty cup which she sat holding with pathetic awkwardness.

"You have none, either, Miss Starr," she said, sweetly. "Suppose we try the crystal ball? I've been wanting to do it ever since I came, but was afraid to venture, alone."

Rosemary, her senses whirling, followed her over to the table, where the ball lay on its bit of black velvet.

"How do you do it?" asked Edith, of Madame.

"Just get into a good light, shade your eyes, and look in."

"That's easy," Edith said. She bent over the table, shaded her eyes with her white, beautifully-kept hands, and peered into the crystalline depths. "There's nothing here," she continued, somewhat fretfully, to Alden, "except you. By some trick of reflection, I could see you as plainly as though it were a mirror. You try, Miss Starr."

Madame's heart contracted suddenly as she remembered the day she had looked into the crystal ball, and had seen not only Alden, but a woman with flaming red hair, clasped closely in his arms. "It's all nonsense," she tried to say, but her stiff lips would not move.

Rosemary left the table and went back to her corner. "What did you see?" queried Edith. "Did you have any better luck than I did?"

"No," Rosemary answered, with a degree more of self-possession than she had shown previously. "There was nothing there but a black cloud."

The task of keeping up the conversation fell to Edith and Alden, for Madame had unconsciously withdrawn into herself as some small animals shut themselves into their shells. All were relieved, though insensibly, when Rosemary said she must go.

Alden went into the hall with her, to help her with her coat and hat, and, as opportunity offered, to kiss her twice, shyly, on her cheek. He wanted to go part way home with her, but Rosemary refused.

"You'd better not," she said, "but thank you just as much."

"Won't you even let me go to the corner with you?"

"No," said Rosemary, with trembling lips, "please don't."

So she went on alone, while Alden returned to the living-room. Edith was saying to Madame: "Poor little brown mouse! How one longs to take a girl like that and give her all the pretty things she needs!"

Madame took the crystal ball, wrapped it in its bit of velvet, and put it on the highest shelf of the bookcase, rolling it back behind the books, out of sight.

"Why do you do that, Mother?" asked Alden, curiously. "Because," returned Madame, grimly, "it's all nonsense. I won't have it around any more."

Alden laughed, but Edith went on, thoughtfully: "I'd like to do her hair for her, and see that all her under-things were right, and then put her into a crÊpe gown of dull blue—a sort of Chinese blue, with a great deal of deep-toned lace for trimming, and give her a topaz pendant set in dull silver, and a big picture hat of ecru net, with a good deal of the lace on it, and one long plume, a little lighter than the gown."

"I would, too," said Alden, smiling at Edith. He did not in the least know what she was talking about, but he knew that she felt kindly toward Rosemary, and was grateful for it.

Rosemary, at home, went about her duties mechanically. There was a far-away look in her eyes which did not escape the notice of Grandmother and Aunt Matilda, but they forebore to comment upon it as long as she performed her tasks acceptably. At supper she ate very little, and that little was as dust and ashes in her mouth.

Before her, continually, was a heart-breaking contrast. She, awkward, ugly, ill at ease in brown alpaca made according to the fashion of ten or fifteen years ago, and Mrs. Lee, beautiful, exquisite, dainty to her finger-tips, richly dowered with every conceivable thing that she herself lacked.

"Mother," said Rosemary, to herself. "Oh, Mother!" She did not mean Mrs. Marsh, but the pretty, girlish mother who had died in giving birth to her. She would have been like Mrs. Lee, or prettier, and she would have understood.

Her heart smarted and burned and ached, but she got through the evening somehow, and, at the appointed time, stumbled up to her own room.

Why should she care because another woman was prettier than she, knew more, and had more? Were there not many such in the world, and had she not Alden? Accidentally, Rosemary came upon the cause of her pain.

Of course she had Alden, for always—unless—then, once more, reassurance came. "She's married," said Rosemary, smiling back at the white, frightened face she saw in the mirror. "She's married!"

The thought carried with it so much comfort that presently Rosemary slept peacefully, exhausted, as she was, by the stress of the afternoon. "She's married," was her last conscious thought, and a smile lingered upon her lips as she slept. She had not enough worldly wisdom to know that, other things being equal, a married woman may be a dangerous rival, having the unholy charm of the unattainable, and the sanction of another man's choice.