"Yes, I know, Seth, you are right and I am wrong," she said, and her tone was half laughing and half crying, and wholly penitent. "That's just it, I am always wrong. I have done nothing but bring you trouble. I am no help to you at all. Even this fresh trouble with the Indians is my doing. And none of you ever blame me. And--and I don't want to go away. Oh, Seth, you don't know how I want to stay! And you're packing me off like a naughty child. I am not even asked if I want to go." She finished up with that quick change to resentment so characteristic of her. The touch of resentment saved Seth. He found it possible to answer her, which he did with an assumption of calmness he in no way felt. It was a pathetic little face that looked up into his. The girl's anger had brought a flush to her cheeks, but her beautiful eyes were as tearful as an April sky. "Guess we've all got to do a heap o' things we don't like, Rosie; a mighty big heap. An' seems to me the less we like 'em the more sure it is they're right for us to do. Some folks calls it 'duty.'" "And you think it's my duty to go?" Seth nodded. "My duty, the same as it was your duty always to help me out when I got into some scrape?" Without a thought Seth nodded again, and was at once answered by that hollow little laugh which he found so jarring. "I hate duty! But, since I have had your splendid example before me for six years, it has forced on me the necessity of trying to be like you." The girl's sarcasm was harsh, but Seth ignored it. As she went on her mood changed again. "I was thinking while that old man was talking so much," she said slowly, "how I shall miss Pa, and Ma, and old General. And I can't bear the idea of leaving even the horses and cattle, and the grain fields. I don't know whatever the little papooses at the Mission will do without me. I wonder if all the people who do their duty feel like that about things? They can't really, or they wouldn't want to do it, and would just be natural and--and human sometimes. Think of it, Seth, I'm going to leave all this beautiful sunshine for the fog of London just for the sake of duty. I begin to feel quite good. Then, you see, when I'm rich I shall have so much to do with my money--so many duties--that I shall have no time to think of White River Farm at all. And if I do happen to squeeze in a thought, perhaps just before I go to sleep at night, it'll be such a comfort to think everybody here is doing their duty. You see nothing else matters, does it?" Seth took refuge in silence. The girl's words pained him, but he knew that it was only her grief at leaving, and he told himself that her bitterness would soon pass. The pleasure of traveling, of seeing new places, the excitement of her new position would change all that. Receiving no reply Rosebud went on, and her bitterness merged into an assumed brightness which quite deceived her companion.