"Had _she_ done like this, how different would my life have been," thought Mr. Browning, and involuntarily caressing the curly head, he was about to speak, when Rosamond interrupted him, saying, "I won't deceive you, Mr. Browning, and make you think I'm better than I am. I am sorry I acted so to you, but I don't believe I'm sorry about Mrs. Van Vechten. I don't like her, for she always treats me as though I were not near as good as she, and I can't wait on her any more. Must I? Oh, don't make me," and she looked beseechingly into his face. He could not help respecting her for that inborn feeling, which would not permit herself to be trampled down, and though he felt intuitively that she was having her own way after all, he assured her of his forgiveness, and then added: "Mrs. Van Vechten will not require your services, for she received a letter to-night, saying her presence was needed at home, and she leaves us to-morrow." "_And Ben?_" she asked--"does he go, too?" "He accompanies his mother to New York," Mr. Browning said, "and I believe she intends leaving him there with a friend, until his school commences again." In spite of herself, Rosamond rather liked Ben, and feeling that she was the cause of his banishment from Riverside, her sympathy was enlisted for him, and she said, "If I were not here, Ben would stay. Hadn't you rather send me away?" "No, Rosamond, no;--I need you here," was Mr. Browning's reply, and then as the clock struck eleven, he bade her leave him, saying it was time children like her were in bed. As he had said, Mis. Van Vechten was going away, and she came down to breakfast next morning in her traveling dress, appearing very unamiable, and looking very cross at Rosamond, with whom she finally parted without a word of reconciliation. Ben, on the contrary, was all affability, and managed slyly to kiss her, telling her he should come there again in spite of his mother. After their departure the household settled back into its usual monotonous way of living, with the exception that Rosamond, being promoted to the position of an equal, became, in many respects, the real mistress of Riverside, though Mrs. Peters nominally held the reins, and aside from superintending her work, built many castles of the future when her protegee would be a full grown woman and her master still young and handsome! CHAPTER IV ROSAMOND'S EDUCATION