As time passed, Rose Stillwater continued to make herself more and more useful to her host and benefactor. She enlivened his table and his evenings at home by her cheerful conversation, her music and her games. She waited on him hand and foot, helped him on and off with his wraps when he went out or came in; warmed his slippers, filled his pipe, dried his newspapers, served him in innumerable little ways with a childlike eagerness and delight that was as the incense of frankincense and myrrh to the nostrils of the egotist. And he praised her and held her up as a model to his granddaughter. Rose Stillwater was a proper young woman, a model young woman, all indeed that a woman should be. He had never seen one to approach her status in all his long life. She was certainly the most excellent of her sex. He did not know what in this gloomy house they could ever do without her. Such was the burden of his talk to Cora. Mrs. Rothsay gave but cold assent to all this. She had too much reverence for the fifth commandment to tell her grandfather what she thought of the situation--that Rose Stillwater was making a notable fool of him, either for the sake of keeping a comfortable home, or gaining a place in his will, or of something greater still which would include all the rest. She tried to treat the woman with cold civility. But how could she persevere in such a course of conduct toward a beautiful blue eyed angel who was always eager to please, anxious to serve? Cora felt that this woman was a fraud, yet when she met her lovely, candid, heaven blue eyes she could not believe in her own intuitions. Cora, like some few unenvious women, was often affected by other women's beauty. The childlike loveliness of her quondam teacher really touched her heart. So she could not at all times maintain the dignified reserve that she wished toward Rose Stillwater. Meantime the day approached when it was decided that they should all go to West Point to the commencement, at which Cadet Sylvan Haught was expected to graduate. Mr. Rockharrt had invited Mrs. Stillwater to be of their party, and insisted upon her accompanying them. Rose demurred. She even ventured to hint that Mrs. Rothsay might not like her to go with them; whereupon the Iron King gathered his brow so darkly and fearfully, and said so sternly: "She had better not dislike it," that Rose hastened to say that it was only her own secret misgiving, and that no part of Mrs. Rothsay's demeanor had led her to such a supposition. And she resolved never again to drop a hint of her hostess' too evident suspicion of herself to the family autocrat, for it was the last mistake that Mrs. Stillwater could possibly wish to make--to kindle anger between grandfather and granddaughter. Her policy was to forbear, to be patient, to conciliate, and to bide her time.