"Thus will I live," thought Grace, "till Roland marries, and then if my adopted father claims me, I will try to find happiness in administering to his." One evening, just as the sun had set, she returned from the garden, her white apron gathered up before her, full of damask rose leaves, while exercise and a bending position had given her cheeks a hue, warm as the twilight's glow, and calling eagerly to Susan, to present her offering for distillation, she crossed the threshold and stood before--Roland Gray. Electrified at the sight, she let go her apron, and the leaves fell in a rosy shower around her. "Grace, dear Grace!" exclaimed Roland, and both hands were clasped in his own. Now she had been called dear Grace, and sweet Grace, and pretty Grace, a thousand times in her life, but never in such a tone, and with such eyes looking down into her heart. It is easy to imagine why Roland came, and how eloquently he proved to Grace that he loved her better than all the world beside, and that he could not, and would not live without her. For a moment a flood of rapture, deep and overwhelming, flowed in upon her heart from the conviction that she was thus beloved; the next, a cold and freezing thought shot through it and turned the current to ice. Lucy--her threatened curse, her withering enmity, her own promise of never thinking of Roland, and of never revealing what had passed between Lucy and herself--all was remembered, and suddenly withdrawing her hand from his, she turned away and wept, without the power of self-control.