And Martha, even in her heart, does not say, “Poor Harry!” No, Martha, for the first time, tries to blind herself with false hope--tries to dismiss all her old anxious love from her heart, and be careless, and take no thought for the morrow. She has determined to think of Harry’s errors as other people think--to call them exuberances, follies of youth, and to smile with gentle indulgence, instead of sorrowing in stern despair. For Harry is a man--head of a household; and Martha tries to endure placidly--tries to persuade herself that there is nothing to endure--knows that he must be left now to himself, to make his own fate. To-day she sees, as no other eye can see, the beginning of peril, and Harry’s excitement, excusable though it may be, and constantly as she herself excuses it, has wrought in Martha a kindred agitation. She will not permit herself to grieve or to fear; but sad is this assumed light-heartedness which Rose trembles to see. Meanwhile Rose and Agnes, who have carried off Harry’s gifts between them, are laughing and crying together over the store. It may be imprudent--it may be extravagant; but it is “so kind of Harry!” He is so anxious to give them pleasure. And Mr. Charteris, in the drawing-room, talks to Martha with some abstraction, and coldly withdraws himself from the elegant conversation of Mr. Gilbert Allenders. Cuthbert cannot understand why Rose should avoid him; and he feels the blood warm at his heart with the pride to which neglect is grievous. But, at the same time, he is troubled and depressed, and looks with a yearning he never knew before at the closed door, and speaks little, lest he should lose the sound of the approaching footstep, which he remembers to be so light. The room is full of roses, though now in July their flush of beauty is nearly over. Roses red and white, the delicate blush and the burning purple; but Cuthbert would throw them all into the river joyfully for one glimpse of his Lady Rose.