Rose In Bloom

ng."'As he was walkin' doun the streetThe city for to view,Oh, there he spied a bonny lass,The window lookin' through.'""Sae licht he jumpèd

es. The girl was thinking of this as she watched her cousin turn the ring about with a sudden sobriety which became him well; and, believing that the moment was propitious, she said earnestly,- "He is getting on. Dear Charlie, do think of duty more than pleasure in this case and I'm sure you never will regret it." "Do you want me to go?" he asked quickly. "I think you ought." "And I think you'd be much more charming if you wouldn't always be worrying about right and wrong! Uncle Alec taught you that along with the rest of his queer notions." "I'm glad he did!" cried Rose warmly, then checked herself and said with a patient sort of sigh, "You know women always want the men they care for to be good and can't help trying to make them so." "So they do, and we ought to be a set of angels, but I've a strong conviction that, if we were, the dear souls wouldn't like us half as well. Would they now?" asked Charlie with an insinuating smile. "Perhaps not, but that is dodging the point. Will you go?" persisted Rose unwisely. "No, I will not." That was sufficiently decided and an uncomfortable pause followed, during which Rose tied a knot unnecessarily tight and Charlie went on exploring the drawer with more energy than interest. "Why, here's an old thing I gave you ages ago!" he suddenly exclaimed in a pleased tone, holding up a little agate heart on a faded blue ribbon. "Will you let me take away the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh?" he asked, half in earnest, half in jest, touched by the little trinket and the recollections it awakened. "No, I will not," answered Rose bluntly, much displeased by the irreverent and audacious question. Charlie looked rather abashed for a moment, but his natural lightheartedness made it easy for him to get the better of his own brief fits of waywardness and put others in good humor with him and themselves. "Now we are even let's drop the subject and start afresh," he said with irresistible affability as he coolly put the little heart in his pocket and prepared to shut the drawer. But something caught his eye, and exclaiming, "What's this? What's this?" he snatched up a photograph which lay half under a pile of letters with foreign postmarks. "Oh! I forgot that was there," said Rose hastily. "Who is the man?" demanded Charlie, eyeing the good-looking countenance before him with a frown. "That is the Honorable Gilbert Murray, who went up the Nile with us and shot crocodiles and other small game, being a mighty hunter, as I told you in my letters," answered Rose gaily, though ill pleased at the little discovery just then, for this had been one of the narrow escapes her uncle spoke of. "And they haven't eaten him yet, I infer from the pile of letters?" said Charlie jealously. "I hope not. His sister did not mention it when she wrote last." "Ah! Then she is your correspondent? Sisters are dangerous things sometimes." And Charlie eyed the packet suspiciously. "In this case, a very convenient thing, for she tells me all about her brother's wedding, as no one else would take the trouble to do." "Oh! Well, if he's married, I don't care a straw about him. I fancied I'd found out why you are such a hard-hearted charmer. But if there is no secret idol, I'm all at sea again." And Charlie tossed the photograph into the drawer as if it no longer interested him. "I'm hard-hearted because I'm particular and, as yet, do not find anyone at all to my taste." "No one?" with a tender glance. "No one" with a rebellious blush, and the truthful addition "I see much to admire and like in many persons, but none quite strong and good enough to suit me. My heroes are old-fashioned, you know." "Prigs, like Guy Carleton, Count Altenberg, and John Halifax I know the pattern you goody girls like," sneered Charlie, who preferred the Guy Livingston, Beauclerc, and Rochester style. "Then I'm not a 'goody girl,' for I don't like prigs. I want a gentleman in the best sense of the word, and I can wait, for I've seen one, and know there are more in the world." "The deuce you have! Do I know him?" asked Charlie, much alarmed. "You think you do," answered Rose with a mischievous sparkle in her eye. "If it isn't Pem, I give it up. He's the best-bred fellow I know." "Oh, dear, no! Far superior to Mr. Pemberton and many years older," said Rose, with so much respect that Charlie looked perplexed as well as anxious. "Some apostolic minister, I fancy. You pious creatures always like to adore a parson. But all we know are married." "He isn't." "Give a name, for pity's sake I'm suffering tortures of suspense," begged Charlie. "Alexander Campbell." "Uncle? Well, upon my word, that's a relief, but mighty absurd all the same. So, when you find a young saint of that sort, you intend to marry him, do you?" demanded Charlie much amused and rather disappointed. "When I find any man half as honest, good, and noble as Uncle, I shall be proud to marry him if he asks me," answered Rose decidedly. "What odd tastes women have!" And Charlie leaned his chin on his hand to muse pensively for a moment over the blindness of one woman who could admire an excellent old uncle more than a dashing young cousin. Rose, meanwhile, tied up her parcels industriously, hoping she had not been too severe, for it was very hard to lecture Charlie, though he seemed to like it sometimes and came to confession voluntarily, knowing that women love to forgive when the sinners are of his sort. "It will be mail time before you are done," she said presently, for silence was less pleasant than his rattle. Charlie took the hint and dashed off several notes in his best manner. Coming to the business letter, he glanced at it and asked, with a puzzled expression: "What is all this? Cost of repairs, etc., from a man named Buffum?" "Never mind that I'll see to it by and by." "But I do mind, for I'm interested in all your affairs, and though you think I've no head for business, you'll find I have if you'll try me." "This is only about my two old houses in the city, which are being repaired and altered so that the rooms can be let singly." "Going to make tenement houses of them? Well, that's not a bad idea such places pay well, I've heard." "That is just what I'm not going to do. I wouldn't have a tenement house on my conscience for a million dollars not as they are now," said Rose decidedly. "Why, what do you know about it, except that people live in them and the owners turn a pretty penny on the rents?" "I know a good deal about them, for I've seen many such, both here and abroad. It was not all pleasure with us, I assure you. Uncle was interested in hospitals and prisons, and I sometimes went with him, but they made me sad so he suggested other charities that I could be of help about when we came home. I visited infant schools, working women's homes, orphan asylums, and places of that sort. You don't know how much good it did me and how glad I am that I have the means of lightening a little some of the misery in the world." "But, my dear girl, you needn't make ducks and drakes of your fortune trying to feed and cure and clothe all the poor wretches you see. Give, of course everyone should do something in that line and no one likes it better than I. But don't, for mercy's sake, go at it as some women do and get so desperately earnest, practical, and charity-mad that there is no living in peace with you," protested Charlie, looking alarmed at the prospect. "You can do as you please. I intend to do all the good I can by asking the advice and following the example of the most 'earnest,' 'practical,' and 'charitable' people I know so, if you don't approve, you can drop my acquaintance," answered Rose, emphasizing the obnoxious words and assuming the resolute air she always wore when defending her hobbies. "You'll be laughed at." "I'm used to that." "And criticized and shunned." "Not by people whose opinion I value." "Women shouldn't go poking into such places." "I've been taught that they should." "Well, you'll get some dreadful disease and lose your beauty, and then where are you?" added C