That evening Everard came up to Elm Park with Rosamond. They had just heard of Bee’s return, and hastened at once to see her. Everard was looking about the same as when Beatrice saw him last, except that he was perhaps a little thinner. He was working pretty hard, he said, and earning some money, but his dress did not indicate anything like reckless expenditure upon himself, and Beatrice felt sure that Josephine was drawing heavily upon him. He was now quite at home at the Forrest House, and was there nearly every evening, and Beatrice felt something like a throb of fear when she saw his eyes resting upon Rossie, as if loth to leave the fresh young face, which had grown so bright and attractive during the last few months. She was growing very pretty, and her figure looked graceful and womanly when at last she arose to go, and stood while Everard folded her shawl around her, drawing it close up about her neck so as to shield her throat, which was a little sore. Something in that shawl adjustment and the length of time it took sent another thrill through Bee’s nerves, and the moment they were gone she went to her room, where Trixey lay sleeping, and bending over the child, wondered if in all lives things got as terribly mixed as they were in hers and Everard’s. CHAPTER XXIV. IN THE SUMMER. Trixey did not thrive well in her new home, though everything which human ingenuity could devise was done to make her happy and contented. But in spite of everything Trixey could not quite overcome her homesickness. Many times a day she disappeared from sight and was gone a long time, and when she came back there was a mysterious redness about her eyes, which she said, by way of explanation, were “kind of sore, she dessed. Maybe she had got some dust in ’em.” This went on for weeks, until at last, in a fit of remorse lest she had been guilty of a lie, the conscientious child burst out: “’Tain’t dust, ’tain’t sore that makes ’em red; it’s wantin’ to see papa, and mamma, and Bunchie, and baby brudder. Was it a lie, and is I a naughty dirl to make breve it was dust?” Then Bee felt that it would be wrong to keep her any longer, and wrote to Mrs. Morton to that effect. Mrs. Morton and Bunchie were still in Bronson, but Theo was supplying a vacant pulpit in Boston, and only saw his wife once in two or three weeks. There was room in the parsonage now for homesick Trixey, for the sickly baby had died suddenly with cholera infantum, and the same letter which carried the news to Beatrice asked that Trixey might be sent to Vermont.