Unless she meant to clear away her breakfast dishes herself, her first duty was to send for Bella Greenup. She turned her back on both telephone and dishes, however, and ran up the stairs and into her room. It might be supposed that she intended to begin the day’s work by making her bed; but she spared not a glance for its crumpled state. Some secret purpose, brought to definite shape as the carriage had disappeared, possessed and thrilled her.

There was a window seat formed by a huge, carved rosewood chest. Rosamond dropped on her knees before it and began to search through the layers of coloured frou-frous which were neatly sandwiched between pieces of smooth, white linen. Pink muslin bags containing dried rose leaves, and bunches of dried lavender blossoms woven together in loose checker pattern by lavender and white baby ribbons, were tossed among the rainbow flounces of a profuse wardrobe.

She rose presently with billows of perfumed satins and lace flowing over her arm. Her cheeks were rosy not only from her exertions but from the excitement that stirred her small round bosom, and also kindled her eyes till they glowed like the blue sparks of a driftwood fire. She skimmed across the dull-polished dark oak floor to the mirror. This latter was the one bright article among the sombre furnishings of the room. It was a huge thing with an ornate gold-enamelled frame that finished in a top of turrets, flower-twined trellises, and one-stepping cupids. It reflected the room for Rosamond in fan-shape, with herself the Watteau figure in the fan’s centre.

As she unfastened the top button of the black-sprayed lavender gown she began to hum a little song. They were tiny cut jet buttons, and no doubt suggested to her that time could be saved and the adventure hastened by a good pull. Two sharp tugs ripped them all out of the button-holes; but two of the jet balls had shot, like stray bullets, into the unknown, ere the hated garment reached the middle of the room, having been propelled thereto by the farmer’s daughter’s toe.

The gown she selected in its place was of soft satin, thin and sheer as silk, and of a lilac hue. The skirt, made in two panniers and short round train, draped over an Irish lace petticoat. The round-necked bodice and short, close-fitting sleeves were of the lace. From the front of the girdle, silk folds went over the shoulders and hung in sash-ends at the back. It was a frock of costly simplicity, witnessing that the departed collector of curios, antiques, and objets d’art had been no niggard in the matter of supplying appropriate cases for his purchases.

The other gown, shimmering and smelling of pink roses and trailing with silver gossamer, she shook out and hung upon the high back of some medieval Louis’ chair and draped it with linen to protect it from dust. Presently she returned to the mirror to survey, at her delightful leisure, a sight that would have caused His Friggets to swoon with apprehension, so boldly did it register new claims on life and on youth’s inalienable right to inspire love.

The figure reflected was not diminutive. Without being tall, there was height enough, one would say, to insure the eyes a good view of golden horizons and near heavens, and the arms an easy reach to the honeysuckle clusters or the ripe purple plum hanging low by its own weight. The lines were long and not fragile but well knit at knee and thigh, at shoulders and supple waist; the curves were not less sturdy than graceful and sinuous, like the outlines of a young, white, birch tree, where poetic beauty harmonizes with limber, enduring strength. The tenuousness of high breeding, which His Friggets so admired, was wholly absent from Rosamond’s body. The well-made feet looked equal to miles of meadow running; and the finely rounded, firm, white arms would not tire under the pressure of market baskets. Yet there was a daintiness about her—in her postures and her movements, in the set of her throat and of the chin raised to thrust her eager face a little forward—but it was the daintiness of the field, not of the hothouse.

Both La France and the wild rose are roses; both permeate their worlds with fragrance and are something alike in colour, but no one would compare or contrast them for purposes of criticism. One, the product of selection, is the aristocrat of horticulture. The other is the queen of rusticdom, as unspoiled as she is undisputed in her sway, the passing centuries of garden fancies and fads having influenced her not at all. She is not the less lovely because she is sturdy and able to bear wind and weather.

Rosamond Mearely, nÉe Cort—like the wild rose—proclaimed that the cottager’s environs, and not lordly estates, were her native ground. She was a willing little daughter of the earth, with the earth’s promise in her; and her halesome, country-bred beauty challenged with a frank admission that it would have shone as radiantly in a sun-bonnet, patched gingham apron, and bare feet. This, despite its present wrappings of Lyons silk and Limerick lace and its background of some ancient, royal reprobate’s furniture; and also despite the fact that the mirror which imaged the eager, wistful face under its bright hair had once reflected (so ’twas said) the coronets and the hauteur of the princesses of the House of Orleans.

A joyous flush tinted her satiny skin which was innocent of even the knowledge of powder. Thoughts of freedom came to her and made her breath stir quickly. They promised her things vague and splendid and she felt a flutter about her heart like the wings of birds waking for the morning flight. She was beautiful, she was rich, she was young; and for one whole day, at least, she was her own mistress. A laugh rippled through the sombre old curio shop of a bedroom. She swept herself a curtsy and called gleefully to the contented-looking apparition in the mirror:

“Good-morning, Rosamond!”

She fairly danced down the stairs.