Meanwhile Rose was growing up. When Eustace returned she was eight and I did not want better company. In herself she was interesting, and it was interesting also to compare her with her mother at the same age: I almost felt sometimes as if both were present. She was more with me than the other Rose had been, for I was now less often out and away, having a younger man to take the harder work: and when I was away it was for shorter periods because the car was so much swifter than poor old Silver. Another reason was that this Rose was less friendly with the neighbours: not because of any natural shyness, but because she did not receive the same quality of welcome. The little Rose of twenty years earlier, whose father had died suddenly, was more acceptable than the little Rose of to-day, whose mother had run away from husband and child with another man—and that man the heir to the Hall. We are often not logical in our censorious moods; and one of the last things to go, in the decay of feudalism, will be respect for the Great House. No one was so mean or courageous as to refuse Rose’s acquaintance; but she must have felt instinctively that she was a little under a cloud and therefore have been the more prepared to keep within the home borders. She was, however, as welcome as sunshine in both adjoining territories—the Westerleys’ and the Sturgis’s. Colonel Westerley, who was getting very blind, found her invaluable as a guide. Again and again I have listened to them on their tours round the beds, Rose’s clear little voice raised (for he was getting deaf too) to keep him in touch with the progress of every plant. “This is where the fritillaries are”—she had great difficulty with some of the names. “There are two new purple speckled ones and three white.” “Now we’re opposite the auriculas. The yellow ones are terrific.” “Oh dear, how the rain has broken down the tulips!” “Now we’re opposite the hedge-sparrow’s nest. Wait a minute while I see if there are any more eggs. No, only three still.” So she would mark the changes of each morning, meanwhile leading the gentle old warrior by the hand. The three Sturgis sisters—though none of them was destined to soar to the realms of bliss as Mrs. Julius Greville—fulfilled part of the destiny that the other Rose, all unconsciously, had planned for them, by becoming the most solicitous foster-mothers to her daughter. Out of their unselfishness and their leisure they suggested that Rose should go to them for lessons: a proposal that I was very glad to accept; and so it came about that the eldest gave Rose an hour a day with pencil and paint brushes in the studio (Rose’s grandfather’s studio), and the other two each an hour in more general instruction. Having a full measure of the Quaker placidity to keep them contented with their lot, they had no wish to roam, and were thus ever to be depended upon.