"Come, Rose," she said. She led the way and Rose followed. Mrs. Ayres returned to the sitting-room. The girls went through the old-fashioned garden with its flower-beds outlined with box, in which the earlier flowers were at their prime, to the arbor. It was a pretty old structure, covered with the shaggy arms of an old grape-vine whose gold-green leaves were just uncurling. Lucy placed the bowl of candy on the end of the bench which ran round the interior, and, to Rose's surprise, seated herself at a distance from it, and motioned Rose to sit beside her, without offering her any candy. Lucy leaned against Rose and looked up at her. She looked young and piteous and confiding. Rose felt again that she was sweet and that she loved her. She put her arm around Lucy. "You are a dear," said she. Lucy nestled closer. "I know you must have thought me perfectly horrid to speak as I did to mother," said she, "but you don't understand." Lucy hesitated. Rose waited. "You see, the trouble is," Lucy went on, "I love mother dearly, of course. She is the best mother that ever a girl had, but she is always so anxious about me, and she follows me about so, and I get nervous, and I know I don't always speak as I should. I am often ashamed of myself. You see--" Lucy hesitated again for a longer period. Rose waited. "Mother has times of being very nervous," Lucy said, in a whisper. "I sometimes think, when she follows me about so, that she is not for the time being quite herself." Rose started and looked at the other girl in horror. "Why don't you have a doctor?" said she. "Oh, I don't mean that she--I don't mean that there is anything serious, only she has always been over-anxious about me, and at times I fancy she is nervous, and then the anxiety grows beyond limit. She always gets over it. I don't mean that--" "Oh, I didn't know," said Rose. "I never mean to be impatient," Lucy went on, "but to-day I was very tired, and I wanted to see you especially. I wanted to ask you something." "What?" Lucy looked away from Rose. She seemed to shrink within herself. The color faded from her face. "I heard something," she said, faintly, "but I said I wouldn't believe it until I had asked you." "What is it?" "I heard that you were engaged to marry Mr. Allen." Rose flushed and moved away a little from Lucy. "You can contradict the rumor whenever you hear it again," said she. "Then it isn't true?" "No, it isn't." Lucy nestled against Rose, in spite of a sudden coldness which had come over the other girl. "You are so dear," said she. Rose looked straight ahead, and sat stiffly. "I am thoroughly angry at such rumors, merely because a girl happens to be living in the same house with a marriageable man," said she.