He could not tell anybody unless it was Rossie, and he did not believe he cared to do that now, though he would like to show her the picture and hear what she had to say. Would she see dollar jewelry and cotton lace in the face he thought so divine? He meant to try her, and after Beatrice was gone he strolled off to a shaded part of the grounds, where he came upon Rossie watering a bed of fuchsias. She was not sylph-like and graceful, or clad in airy muslin, like Beatrice. She was unformed and angular, and her dress was a dark chintz, short enough to show her slender ankles, which he had once teasingly called pipe-stems, and her thick boots, which were much too large, for she would not have her feet pinched, and always wore shoes a size and a-half too big. A clean white apron, ruffled and fluted, and a white sun-bonnet, completed her costume. Josephine would have called her “homely,” if she had noticed her at all, and some such idea was in Everard’s mind as he approached her; but when, at the sound of his footsteps, she turned and flashed upon him from beneath the cape bonnet those great, brilliant eyes, he changed his mind, and thought: “Won’t those eyes do mischief yet, when Rossie gets a little older.” She was glad to see him, and stopped watering her flowers while she inquired after his head, and if Miss Belknap found him. “Yes, she did,” he said, adding, as he sat down in a rustic chair: “Bee is handsome and no mistake.” “That’s so,” Rossie replied, promptly, for Bee Belknap’s beauty was her hobby. “She is the handsomest girl I ever saw. Don’t you think so?” Here was his opportunity, and he hastened to seize it. “Why, no,” he said, “not the very handsomest I ever saw. I have a photograph of a girl I think prettier. Here she is.” And he passed Josephine’s picture toward Rossie, who set down her watering-pot, and wiping her soiled hands, took it as carefully as if it had been the picture of a goddess. “Oh, Mr. Everard!” she cried, “she is beautiful; more so than Miss Beatrice, I do believe. Such dreamy eyes, which look at you so kind of—kind of coaxingly, somehow; and such lovely hair! Who is she, Mr. Everard?” “Oh, she’s one of the girls,” Everard answered, laughingly, and experiencing a sudden revulsion of feeling in Josey’s favor at Rossie’s opinion of her. Here was one who could give an unprejudiced opinion; here was a champion for Josey; and in his delight, Everard thought how, with his first spare money, he would buy Rossie a gold ring, as a reward of merit for what she had said of Josey. Her next remarks, however, dampened his ardor a little. “She’s very rich, isn’t she?” Rossie asked; and he replied: “No, not rich at all. Why do you think that?” “Because she has such a big chain and cross, and such heavy bracelets and ear-rings, and is dressed more than Miss Belknap dresses at a grand party,” Rossie said: and Everard answered her quickly: