“Why, I used actually to be half jealous of the Rossie Everard was always talking about,” she said, referring to the past as easily and naturally as if no cloud had ever darkened her horizon, or come between her and the Everard who had talked so much of Rossie. When Josephine first entered the room Rossie was very pale, but at this allusion to herself and Everard there came a flush to her cheeks and a light to her eye which made Josephine change her mind with regard to her personal appearance. “Nobody can ever call her a beauty,” she had said to herself at first, but as the interview progressed, and Rossie grew interested and earnest, Josephine looked wonderingly at her glowing face and large black eyes, which flashed and shone like stars, and almost bewildered and confused her with their brightness, and the way they had of looking straight at her, as if to read her inmost thoughts. It was impossible to suspect Rossie of acting or saying anything she did not mean, for her face was like a clear, faithful mirror, and after a little Josephine began to grow ill at ease in her presence. The bright black eyes troubled her a little when fixed so earnestly upon her, and she found herself wondering if they could penetrate her inmost thoughts, and see just what she was. It was a singular effect which Rossie had upon this woman, whose character was one web of falsehoods and deceit, and who, in the presence of so much purity and innocence, and apparent trust in everybody, was conscious of some new impulse within her, prompting her to a better and sincerer life. Wondering how much Rossie knew of her antecedents, she suddenly burst out with: “Miss Hastings, or Rossie,—I so much wish you’d let me call you by the name I have heard so often. I want to tell you at once how I have hated myself for taking that money, the price of your lovely hair, and letting you believe I was a dreadful gambler, seeking Everard’s ruin.” She had her hand on the “lovely hair,” and was passing her white fingers through it and letting it fall in curling masses about Rossie’s neck and shoulders, as she went on: “It was such a funny mistake you made with regard to me, and it was wrong in me to take the money. I would not do it now; but we were so poor, and I needed it so much, and Everard could not get it. Has he told you all about those times, I wonder, when we were first married, and he did love me a little.” “He has told me a good deal,” was Rossie’s straightforward answer; and sitting down upon a stool in front of her Josey assumed the attitude and manner of a child as she went on to speak of the past, and to beg Rossie to think as leniently of her as possible.