“No, no, no,” he replied, and then as Charlie again bade me come, I rose bewildered to my feet, hardly realizing when Mrs. Lansing, Ada and Lina bade me adieu. Halbert went with me in the carriage, and together with Charlie looked wonderingly at me, as I unconsciously repeated in a whisper, “_My Rose_ I once hoped to call you. It is _Ada_ who stands in the way,” I said to myself, and covering my face with my veil, I wept as I thought of all I had lost when Richard Delafield offered his heart to another. He _did_ love me. I was sure of that, but what did it avail me. He was too honorable to break his engagement with Ada, so henceforth I must walk alone, bearing the burden of an aching heart. * * * * * “Oh, I have loved you so much,” said Halbert, winding his arms about my neck—“loved you as I shall never love another teacher,” and the boy’s tears flowed fast as he bade me good-bye. One parting glance at Cedar Grove, one last lingering look at Sunny Bank, one thought of Jessie’s grave, and then the hissing engine shot out into the woods, leaving them all behind. Leaning back on Charlie’s arm and drawing my veil over my face, I thought how impossible it was that I should ever visit that spot again. * * * * * In the meantime a far different scene was being enacted in the apartment I had just vacated. Scarcely had the whistle of the engine died away in the distance, when a troop of blacks, armed with boiling suds and scrubbing-brushes, entered my chamber for the purpose of cleaning it. They had carried from it nearly every article of furniture, and nothing remained save the matting and the bureau, the latter of which they were about to remove when they were surprised at the unexpected appearance of Mr. Delafield, who could not resist the strong desire which he felt to stand once more in the room where _Rose_ had spent so many weary weeks. For a moment the blacks suspended their employment, and then Linda, who seemed to be leading, took hold of the bureau, giving one end of it a shove towards the centre of the room. The movement dislodged the long lost letter, which, covered with dirt and cobwebs, fell upon the floor, at her feet. She was the same woman who, weeks before, had carelessly knocked off the letter, which she now picked up and handed to Mr. Delafield, saying, as she wiped off the dirt, “It must have laid thar a heap of a while, and now I think on’t, ‘pears like ever so long ago, when I was breshin’ the bureau, I hearn somethin’ done drap, but I couldn’t find nothin’, and it must have been this.”