Gradually, as I could bear it, Mr. Delafield told me the sad story—how she had hung fearlessly over my pillow when all else had deserted me—how she had come for him—and how naught but her mother’s peremptory commands had taken her from my side. As he talked, there came back to me a vague recollection of a fairy form, a seraph I thought it to have been, which, when the dark river was running fast at my feet, had hovered near, whispering to me words of love, and bidding some one bury me beneath the tall magnolia. Then he told me how she had stood like a ministering spirit by the rude couch of the poor Africans, who, with their dying breath, had blessed her, calling her “The Angel of the Pines.” From her head he himself had shorn her beautiful shining curls, one of which he gave to me, and which I prize as my most precious treasure; for often as I look upon it, I see again the little gleeful girl, my “Georgia rose,” who, for a brief space, dwelt within her fair southern home, and was then transplanted to her native soil, where now she blooms, the fairest, sweetest flower of all which deck the fields of heaven. The shock of her death very naturally retarded my recovery, and for many weeks more was I confined to my room. About the middle of October, Charlie, whose coming I had long expected, arrived, bringing to me the sad news that death had again entered our household, that by my father’s and Jamie’s grave was another mound, and at home another vacant chair, that of my aged grandmother, whose illness, he said, had prevented him from coming to me sooner, adding further that they had purposely kept her sickness from me, fearing the effect it might have. Of Dr. Clayton he could tell me but little. He had not visited Meadow Brook at all, but immediately after his return to Boston, he had written to them, saying I was out of danger, and Charlie must go for me as soon as the intense heat of summer was over. This was all they knew, though with woman’s ready tact, both my mother and my sisters conjectured that something was wrong, and Charlie’s first question after telling me what he did, was to inquire into the existing state of affairs between me and the doctor, and if it were my illness alone which had deferred the marriage. “Don’t ask me now,” I replied, “not until we are far from here, and then I will tell you all.” This silenced Charlie, and once when Mr. Delafield questioned him concerning Dr. Clayton, and why he, too, did not come for me, he replied evasively, but in a manner calculated still further to mislead Mr. Delafield, who had no suspicion of the truth, though he fancied there was something wrong. In the meantime he was to me the same kind friend, ministering to all my wants, and with a lavish generosity procuring for me every delicacy, however costly it might be. One day Charlie, with his usual abruptness, said to me, “Rose, why didn’t you fall in love with Mr. Delafield. I should much rather have him than a widower?”