One year has passed away since Mrs. Van Vechten departed for the South, and up the locust lined avenue which leads to Riverside, the owner of the place is slowly riding. It is not pleasant going home tonight, and so he lingers by the way, wondering why it is that the absence of a _child_ should make so much difference in one's feelings! During the year Rosamond had recited her lessons to him, but with many others he fancied no girl's education could be finished unless she were _sent away_--and two weeks before the night of which we write he had taken her himself to Atwater Seminary, a distance of more than two hundred miles, and then, with a sense of desolation for which he could not account, he had returned to his home, which was never so lonely before. There was no merry voice within the walls,--no tripping feet upon the stairs,--no soft, white hand to bathe his forehead when suffering from real or fancied headaches,--no slippers waiting by his chair,--no flowers on the mantel,--no bright face at the window,--no Rosamond at the door. Of all this was he thinking that November afternoon, and when at last he reached his house, he went straight to his library, hoping to find a letter there, telling him of her welfare. But letter there was none, and with a feeling of disappointment he started to the parlor. The door was ajar and he caught glimpses of a cheerfully blazing fire within the grate. The shutters, too, were open and the curtains were put back just as they used to be when _she was there_. It seemed like the olden time, and with spirits somewhat enlivened he advanced into the room. His favorite chair stood before the fire, and so near to it that her head was leaning on its arm, sat a young girl. Her back was turned toward him, but he knew that form full well, and joyfully he cried: "Rosamond, how came you here?" Amid her smiles and tears, Rosamond tempted to tell him the story of her grievances. She was homesick, and she could not learn half so much at the Atwater Seminary as at home--then, too, she hated the strait- jacket rules, and hated the lady-boarder, who pretended to be sick, and wouldn't let the school-girls breathe, especially Rosamond Leyton, for whom she seemed to have conceived a particular aversion. Pleased as Mr. Browning was to have Rosamond with him again, he did not quite like her reasons for coming back, and he questioned her closely as to the cause of her sudden return.