Yes, it was a glorious home, a noble dwelling-place, that of young Rose May! The voice of the southern wind, when it crept so softly up the mountain, and through the branches of the pines, to kiss her brow, and tell her of the wild beauty of the land from which it wandered, that voice was sweet and welcome music to her ear; but no less loved and welcome was the trumpet-blast of the storm, when it came rushing like a fiend’s voice past her home, or like the challenge of a giant fresh from the strong fortress where the soldiery of Winter were garrisoned. Rose loved the flowers, the gay bright blossoms which in midsummer bloomed about her home, but more keen was her delight in the grandeur which made her heart to thrill, and her blood to leap wildly through its veins, when on awakening some dreary mornings of winter, she saw the pine-trees loaded with the wealth of glittering icicles, which glowed and blazed with a splendor greater than if the treasuries of all the kings and princes of earth had been melted and poured over those same stately scions of the soil. Nature in all her phases was beautiful, and welcome to Rose May; but there was something in the heart of the girl which made her sympathize with, and rejoice more keenly in the grand and terrible shapes the great Queen chose during more than eight months of the year to appear in. Therefore Rose May was most truly a daughter, a bright, strong-hearted, noble daughter of the mountains. They had aptly named this maiden after the queen of the flowers. For though there were many sons in Grant May’s household, Rose was the only daughter, and she was like a rose indeed, the fairest as well as tenderest bud opening beneath the family roof-tree. The bloom of health was on the maiden’s cheek—the glow of health was in her veins and in the calm beating of her heart, which told so steadily “all’s well.” While Grant May and his sons were absent from their home all day, tending to their many flocks, Rose remained with her mother at home, assisting her with willing hand in the domestic toils; and a steady and invaluable helpmate was she, spinning yarn from the sheep her father called her own, and then knitting the proceeds into stout socks and mittens for them who labored out of doors; and ingeniously contriving numerous garments, whereby to keep the ears, necks and feet of her wild, light-hearted brothers warm in the dreadful winter weather. Rose was, in fact, quite a pattern maid; never complaining, or caring to rest herself even when she was aweary, while there was any work left for her mother to do—and the last thing she ever would have thought to boast of was ignorance of any part of the book of domestic economy—which volume, if you, my dear reader, have had any occasion to thumb, you know very well is not printed with the most readable or understandable type.