Page:Orange Grove.djvu/153

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"Perhaps they would not tell you so if you were to ask the question. There is a joy for those who weep as well as for those who smile. Do you not think aiSaictions are exalting in their character?"

"Yes, but that does not make us covet or even endure them willingly."

"Did you never, when a child, have to submit to what seemed to you a great trial and privation at the time, but which in the end was of incalculable benefit to you, either for your own improvement, or for the tender proof it gave you of your parents' untiring love?"

Rosalind cared not to pursue the theme farther, and she seated herself in a chair with her face turned from him without answering.

He saw that he had touched the wrong key, and he too was silent, meanwhile studying her attentively until her mother's return.

Walter brought in a golden haired girl of three years whom he placed in Rosalind's lap, saying she must adopt her as her name-sake, her name being Rosie, and having blue eyes resembling her own. The only attendant her mother had when Mrs. Claremont arrived there, she was standing by the bedside affectionately stroking her face, as if that were all that was needed to restore her to consciousness. The father, it seemed, had come home in a fit of delirium tremens, and his wife, being in delicate health, had fallen into a swoon. After taking the proper measures to remove him to the almshouse, where he died soon after, Mrs. Claremont took home the little girl