Then, glancing once more at the paper, he read a second time “Died, April 20th,” and tried to recall what he was doing on that day, the darkest and saddest which had ever dawned for him. Making allowance for the difference in time between Austria and Ohio, it was little past midday with him when it was evening over there where Rosamond was dying, and with a shudder he remembered how he was occupied then. Josephine had written him a note, asking him to come to the Forrest House as soon after lunch as possible, as she wished particularly to see him. As he walked up the avenue to the house, he had looked around sadly and regretfully at the different objects which had once been so familiar to him, and all of which had been so intimately associated with Rossie. It was a lovely April day, and beds of hyacinths and crocuses were in full bloom, and the daffodils and double narcissuses were showing their heads on the borders near the door. These had been Rossie’s special care, and he had seen her so often working among them, trowel in hand, with her high-necked, long-sleeved apron on, that he found himself half-looking for her now. But Rossie was not there; Rossie was dying far away over the sea; and only Josephine met him in the hall, civilly and haughtily, as had been her manner of late, and taking him into the reception-room where Rossie used to come to him and vex him so with her long dress and new airs of womanhood, told him she had an invitation to visit a friend who lived in Indianapolis, and who had invited her to spend the entire summer with her, and she wished to know if he could furnish her with money for the necessary outfit, and should she shut up the house again and let Agnes go to Holburton, or should she keep it open and leave Agnes in charge. He told her she could have the money, and said that if Agnes wished to go to Holburton they might as well shut up the house for the summer; and then he left her and walked rapidly down the avenue, thinking of the girl whose presence seemed to fill the place so completely that once, when a bush near the carriage road rustled suddenly as a rabbit darted away, he stopped, half expecting to see a figure in white sun-bonnet and high-necked apron spring out at him just as Rossie used sometimes to do when she was a little child and he a well-grown boy. And she was dying then, when he was thinking so much of her, and she seemed to be so near him. “Dying then and dead now,” he said, to himself, just as a step was heard outside, and Lawyer Russell came in, stopping short in alarm at the white, haggard face which Everard lifted to him. “What is it, my boy? Are you sick? What has happened? Tell me,” he asked; and motioning to the paper on the floor, Everard answered sadly, “Rossie is dead.” “Rossie dead! No, no, Ned, it can’t be true,” Mr. Russell said, and picking up the paper he read the paragraph indicated by Everard, while a tear moistened his eyelids and rolled down his cheeks.