‘Since you went,’ she would say with a shrug, ‘I keep the coach steady, perhaps, but Rose drives, and we shall have to go where she takes us. By the way, Cathie, what have you been doing to her here? She is not a bit like herself. I don’t generally mind being snubbed. It amuses her and doesn’t hurt me; and, of course, I know I am meant to be her foil. But really, sometimes she is too bad even for me.’ Catherine sighed, but held her peace. Like all strong persons, she kept things very much to herself. It only made vexation more real to talk about them. But she and Agnes discussed the winter and Berlin. ‘You had better let her go,’ said Agnes, significantly; ‘she will go anyhow.’ A few days afterward Catherine, opening the drawing-room door unexpectedly, came upon Rose sitting idly at the piano, her hands resting on the keys, and her great gray eyes straining out of her white face with an expression which sent the sister’s heart into her shoes. ‘How you steal about, Catherine!’ cried the player, getting up and shutting the piano. ‘I declare you are just like Millais’s Gray Lady in that ghostly gown.’ Catherine came swiftly across the floor. She had just left her child, and the sweet dignity of motherhood was in her step, her look. She came and threw her arms round the girl. ‘Rose dear, I have settled it all with mamma. The money can be managed, and you shall go to Berlin for the winter when you like.’ She drew herself back a little, still with her arms round Rose’s waist, and looked at her smiling, to see how she took it. Rose had a strange movement of irritation. She drew herself out of Catherine’s grasp. ‘I don’t know that I had settled on Berlin,’ she said coldly, ‘Very possibly Leipsic would be better.’ Catherine’s face fell. ‘Whichever you like, dear. I have been thinking about it ever since that day you spoke of it--you remember--and now I have talked it over with mamma. If she can’t manage, all the expense we will help. Oh Rose,’ and she came nearer again, timidly, her eyes melting, ‘I know we haven’t understood each other. I have been ignorant, I think, and narrow. But I meant it for the best, dear--I did--’ Her voice failed her, but in her look there seemed to be written the history of all the prayers and yearnings of her youth over the pretty wayward child who had been her joy and torment. Rose could not but meet that look--its nobleness, its humble surrender. Suddenly two large tears rolled down her cheeks. She dashed them away impatiently. ‘I am not a bit well,’ she said, as though in irritable excuse both to herself and Catherine. ‘I believe I have had a headache for a fortnight.’