What had upset Mrs. Nightingale was a counter-memory of twenty years ago, a clear and full and vivid recollection of the garden and the girl and the dog-cart. And then also there "had only been mamma for the girl." But oh, the relation the lassie who said those words bore to those past days, her place in the drama that filled them out! Little wonder her mother's brain reeled. She could see it all vividly now, all over again. A glorious night like this; a dazzling full moon sailing in the blue beyond the tumbled chaos of loose cloud so near the earth; the riot of the wind-swept trees fighting to keep a shred of their old green on their bareness, making new concessions to the blast, and beating their stripped limbs together in their despair; the endless swirl of leaves at liberty, free now at last to enjoy a short and merry life before becoming food for worms. She could see the face she had just parted from, but twenty years younger--the same bone-structure with its unscarred youth upon it, only a lesser beard with a sunnier tinge, but all the thickness of the hair. She could remember the voices in the house, the farewells to the young man who was just starting for India, and how she slipped down to say a last good-bye on her own account, and felt grateful to that old Dean Ireson (the only time in her life) for begging her mother (who, of course, was the Rosalind Nightingale Fenwick spoke of in the train) on no account to expose herself to the night-air. Why, she might have come down, too, into the garden, and spoiled it all! And then she could remember--oh, how well!--their last words in the windy garden, and the horse in the dog-cart, fresh from his stall, and officiously anxious to catch the train--as good as saying so, with flings and stamps. And how little she cared if the groom _did_ hear him call her Rosey, for that was his name for her. "Now, Gerry, remember, I've made you _no_ promises; but I'll play fair. If I change my mind, I'll write and tell you. And you may write to me." "Every day?" "Silly boy, be reasonable! Once a month! You'll see, you'll get tired of it." "Come, Rosey, I say! The idea!" "Yes, you will! Now go! You'll lose the train." "Oh, Rosey dearest!" "Yes, what?--you'll lose the train." "Oh, my dearest, I _can't_! Just think--I may never see you again!" "You _must_ go, Gerry dear! And there's that blockhead of a boy outside there." "Never mind him; he's nobody! Only one more.... Yes, _dearest love_, I'm really going.... Good-bye! good-bye! God bless you!"