She came up and put both her arms round my neck, laid her cheek beside mine a minute, kissed me, and went up-stairs. Lu always rather worshipped me. Dressing my hair that night, Carmine, my maid, begged for the remnants of the bell-wort to "make a scent-bag with, Miss." Next day, no Rose; it rained. But at night he came and took possession of the room, with a strange, airy gayety never seen in him before. It was so chilly, that I had heaped the wood-boughs, used in the yesterday's decorations, on the hearth, and lighted a fragrant crackling flame that danced up wildly at my touch,--for I have the faculty of fire. I sat at one side, Lu at the other, papa was holding a skein of silk for her to wind, the amber beads were twinkling in the firelight,--and when she slipped them slowly on the thread, bead after bead, warmed through and through by the real blaze, they crowded the room afresh with their pungent spiciness. Papa had called Rose to take his place at the other end of the silk, and had gone out; and when Lu finished, she fastened the ends, cut the thread, Rose likening her to Atropos, and put them back into her basket. Still playing with the scissors, following down the lines of her hand, a little snap was heard. "Oh!" said Louise, "I have broken my ring!" "Can't it be repaired?" I asked. "No," she returned briefly, but pleasantly, and threw the pieces into the fire. "The hand must not be ringless," said Rose; and slipping off the ring of hers that he wore, he dropped it upon the amber, then got up and threw an armful of fresh boughs upon the blaze. So that was all done. Then Rose was gayer than before. He is one of those people to whom you must allow moods,--when their sun shines, dance, and when their vapors rise, sit in the shadow. Every variation of the atmosphere affects him, though by no means uniformly; and so sensitive is he, that, when connected with you by any intimate _rapport_, even if but momentary, he almost divines your thoughts. He is full of perpetual surprises. I am sure he was a nightingale before he was Rose. An iridescence like sea-foam sparkled in him that evening, he laughed as lightly as the little tinkling mass-bells at every moment, and seemed to diffuse a rosy glow wherever he went in the room. Yet gayety was not his peculiar specialty, and at length he sat before the fire, and, taking Lu's scissors, commenced cutting bits of paper in profiles. Somehow they all looked strangely like and unlike Mr. Dudley. I pointed one out to Lu, and, if he had needed confirmation, her changing color gave it. He only glanced at her askance, and then broke into the merriest description of his life in Rome, of which he declared he had not spoken to us yet, talking fast and laughing as gleefully as a child, and illustrating people and localities with scissors and paper as he went on, a couple of careless snips putting a whole scene before us.