Thus requested, Rosalie advanced to the window, and drawing aside the thin curtain which screened it from observation, displayed the lovely bush with its rich wreaths of spotless buds, now rapidly unfolding in the light and warmth of a bright January sun, which streamed from the brilliant azure of a Canadian sky full upon it. Madame de Rochemont gave audible expression to her admiration at sight of the beautiful plant, and renewed her request, at any price, to obtain its blossoms. But Rosalie, true to her filial idea of love and duty, would not be tempted to depart from it, even by the sight of the offered gold, one piece of which would have lightened the incessant toil to which she was now subjected. The continued sound of voices in the apartment at length aroused the sick man from his slumbers; and with that confused feeling which, even in health, often accompanies the first moments of awaking from a sound sleep, he looked up around, unable to conjecture where he was, or from whom or whence the unusual hum of voices proceeded. At length, his ear traced them to the window, and listening more intently, he caught some words respecting the rose-tree—a thing not less sacred to him than to his daughter—which startled and interested him. With a preternatural strength he raised himself upon his elbow, and gazed at the speakers, striving to take into his confused mind the meaning of the scene before him, when he saw the woman Grayson, while her mistress held Rosalie’s attention engaged, glide quietly to the opposite side of the tree, and screened from their notice by its thick foliage, grasp a branch with one hand, while in the other she held a glittering pair of scissors, with which she was in the act of severing it from the main stalk. Electrified by the sight, an unwonted energy nerved him, and he sent forth a loud, unearthly cry, a sudden out-burst of mingled agony and fear, which chilled the blood of those who heard it: “The roses, the roses! Child, child, be not faithless to your mother’s wish!” he gasped, in thrilling accents, and then sunk back exhausted on his pillow. The scissors fell from the hand of Grayson in her momentary fright, and she dropped the branch she had only partially severed; but hardened and fearless, she would almost instantly have returned to complete her purpose, had not Madame de Rochemont, with a look of mingled terror and annoyance, beckoned her away.