“I mean the high and mighty air you have put on toward me. Why, you are so cold and dignified that one can’t touch you with a ten-foot pole, and this ought not to be. I have a right to expect something different from you, Rossie. I dare say I can guess in part what is the matter. You are always thinking of that day you came to me in father’s room and said what you did. But for Heaven’s sake, forget it. I have never thought of it as a thing of which you need feel ashamed. You had tried every way to give me the money, and when that idea was suggested you seized upon it without a thought of harm, and generously offered to marry me and then run away, and so reinstate me in my rights.” Rossie’s face was scarlet, but she did not speak, and he continued: “It was a noble, unselfish act, and just like you, and I don’t think a whit the less of you for it. I know you did not mean it _that way_, as you assured me so vehemently. I am your brother. You have known me as such ever since you can remember anything here, and my little sister was very dear to me, and I miss her so much now that I have lost her.” “Lost her, Mr. Everard! Lost me! No, you haven’t,” Rosamond said, her eyes filling with tears, which shone like stars, as Everard went on: “Yes, I have. I lost her when you put on those long dresses and began to meet me in such a formal way, with that prim, old duenna always present, as if she was afraid I was going to eat you up. Mrs. Markham is very nice, no doubt, but I don’t like that in her. It may be English propriety, but it is not American. I’m not going to hurt you, and I want sometimes to see you here alone and talk freely and cozily, as we used to talk,—about your cats, if you like, I don’t care what, if it brings you back to me, for you don’t know how I long for the child whom I used to tease so much.” He stopped talking, and Rossie was almost beautiful, with the bright color in her cheeks and the soft light in her eyes, which were full of tears, as she said, impulsively, “You shall have the child Rossie again, Mr. Everard. I am glad you have told me what you have. It will make it so much easier now to see you. I was always thinking of _that_, and feeling that you were thinking of it, too, and I am happy to know you are not. I don’t wish to be stiff and distant with you, and you may come as often as you choose, and Mrs. Markham need not always be present,—that was as much my idea as hers; but the long dress I must wear now; it suits me better than the short clothes which showed my feet so much. You know how you used to tease me.” She was beginning to seem like herself again, and Everard enjoyed himself so well that he staid until Mrs. Markham returned, and when at last he left, it was with a feeling that he liked the graceful, dignified young girl almost as well as he had once liked the child Rossie. CHAPTER XXIII. BEE’S FAMILY.