"Yes; and I am doing it as much as she will let me. I advise a warmer climate for the coming winter. Mr. Rockharrt will be able to travel by the first of November, and he should then take her to Florida. But, you see, he pooh-poohs the whole suggestion. Well--'A willful man must have his way,'" said the doctor, as he took up his hat and bade the lady good-by. A week after this conversation, on the day on which Aaron Rockharrt first sat up in his easy chair, Rose had her first hemorrhage from the lungs. It laid her on the bed from which she was never to rise. Cora became her constant and tender nurse. Rose was subdued and patient. A few days after this she said to the lady: "It seems to me that my own dear father, who has been absent from my thoughts for so many years, has drawn very near his poor child in these last few months, and nearer still in the last few days. I do not see him, nor hear him, nor feel him by any natural sense, but I do perceive him. I do perceive that he is trying to do me good, and that he is glad I am coming to him so soon. I am sorry for all the wrong I have done, and I hope the Lord will forgive me. But how can I expect Him to do it, when I can scarcely forgive--even now on my dying bed I can scarcely forgive--my step-mother and her husband for the neglect and cruelty that wrecked my life? Oh, but I forget. You know nothing of all this." Cora did know. Fabian had told her; but he had also exacted a promise of secrecy from her; so she said nothing in reply to this. Rose continued, speaking in a low, meditative tone: "Yes; I am sorry, sorry for the evil I have done. It was not worth while to do it. Life is too short--too short even at its longest. But, oh! I had such a passionate ambition for recognition by the great world! for the admiration of society! Every one whom I met in our quiet lives told me, either by words or looks, that I was beautiful--very beautiful--and I believed them; and I longed for wealth and rank, for dress and jewels, to set off this beauty, and for ease and luxury to enjoy life. Oh, what vanity! Oh, what selfishness! And here I am, with the grave yawning to swallow me up," she murmured, drearily. "No, dear; no," said Cora, gently laying her hand on the blue-white forehead of the fading woman. "No, Rose. No grave opens for any human being; but only for the body that the freed human being has left behind. It is not the grave that opens for you, Rose, but your father's arms. Would you like to see a minister, dear?" "If Mr. Rockharrt does not object." "Then you shall see one." Rose's sick room was on the opposite side of the hall from Mr. Rockharrt's convalescent apartment.