Miss Rosa returned to Bellair the next afternoon, and with her departure Holly’s spirits returned. Winthrop smiled and sighed at the same time. It was all so palpable, so childish and――so sweet. There was the disturbing thought. Why should he find his heart warming at the contemplation of Holly’s tiny fit of jealousy? Was he really going to make a fool of himself and spoil their pleasant comradeship by falling in love with her? What arrant nonsense! It was the silly romantic atmosphere that was doing the mischief! Hang it all, a man could fall in love with an Alaskan totem-pole here if he was in company with it for half an hour! There were three very excellent reasons why he mustn’t let himself fall in love with Holly Wayne, and it was plainly his duty to keep a watch on himself. With that thought in mind he spent more time away from Waynewood than theretofore, throwing himself on the companionship of the Major, who was always delighted to have him drop in at his office or at the Palmetto House, where he lived; or riding out to Sunnyside to spend the day with Colonel Byers. The Major had loaned him a shotgun, an antiquated 12-bore, and with this and ’Squire Parish’s red setter Lee, he spent much time afield and had some excellent sport with the quail. Holly accused him many times of being tired of her company, adding once that she was sorry she wasn’t as entertaining as Rosa Carter, whereupon Winthrop reiterated his vows of fealty, but declared that his lazy spell had passed, that he was at last acclimated and no longer satisfied with sweet inaction. And Holly professed to believe him, but in her heart was sure that the fault lay with her and decided that when she was married to Julian she would make him take her travelling everywhere so that she could talk as well as Rosa. [Illustration] December came in with a week of rainy days, during which the last of the roses were beaten from their stalks and the garden drooped dank and disconsolate. Blue violets, moist and fragrant under their dripping leaves, were the only blooms the garden afforded those days. Holly, to whose pagan spirit enforced confinement in-doors brought despair, took advantage of every lift of the clouds to don a linen cluster, which she gravely referred to as her rain-coat, and her oldest sun-bonnet, and get out amidst the drenched foliage. Those times she searched the violet-beds and returned wet and triumphant to the house. Winthrop coming back from a tramp to town one afternoon rounded the curve of the carriage-road just as she regained the porch. “Violets?” he asked, his eyes travelling from the little cluster of blossoms and leaves in her hand to the soft pink of her cool, moist cheeks. “Yes, for the guest chamber,” answered Holly. “You are expecting a visitor?” he asked, his thoughts turning to Julian Wayne. “Stupid!” said Holly. “Your room is the guest room. Didn’t you know it? Wait, please, and I’ll put them in water for you.” [Illustration]