Rose’s scissors clipped sharply and a fresh young twig fell unnoticed to the floor. There was a long pause. Miss English had mechanically taken off her gloves and she was drawing them through her fingers, her face full of honest trouble. “After awhile she came up stairs,” she continued, “and came into the room where I was--” “Gertrude,” interrupted Rose suddenly, “ought you to tell me this?” “Every one will know soon,” said Gertrude dryly; “she came over and looked at the child and said she was glad he was better--he was asleep then and the nurse had gone out of the room for some extra milk. Margaret’s face was white, and her eyes--I never saw her eyes so wonderful. Suddenly she flung her arms around my neck and began to cry, softly so as not to wake the child. She told me--she’s going to get a divorce!” Rose put aside her scissors and sat down, looking across at Gertrude with a strange expression, but she said nothing. Miss English sighed, folding her gloves again. “Of course I know how bad it’s been,” she said; “he’s a brute to her sometimes and swears at her before everybody but, well, Rose, don’t you think you’d swear at Margaret if you had to live with her?” Rose smiled a little, her lips pale. “I don’t know, Gerty,” she said, “I never did--in my life.” “Didn’t you?” Miss English sighed again; “well,” she said, “when you’re poor, downright, disgustingly poor, you just have to say ‘damn’ once in awhile, if you didn’t you’d kill somebody!” “But White isn’t poor,” objected Rose, “he’s only vulgar.” “Well, of course there’s Lily Osborne,” Gertrude shrugged her shoulders; “there won’t be any trouble about the divorce in the State of New York or anywhere else, I fancy! I wonder if she means to go to Omaha.” “Do you believe it’s really settled?” Rose asked, with a strong feeling of self-abasement; she thought herself a scandal-monger, an unworthy creature, but her heart quaked within her with an unspoken dread, and Miss English’s next remarks drove it home. “Without doubt,” she said; “I know it is and,”--she colored a little and looked out of the window at the April sunshine on the garden wall--“Rose, do you believe she’ll marry William Fox?” she whispered. Rose sat regarding her and said nothing. What could she say, poor child? That vividly pictured scene of Margaret weeping and Fox as her comforter was burning deep, and Rose had been brought up by an Old Testament Christian! “It would be a great pity,” Miss English observed, after a long silence; “it would ruin Mr. Fox--people would say _everything_.” Rose colored painfully. “People say very cruel things, Gerty,” she said slowly, “and, perhaps, we’re as bad as any just now.”