"Well," said the dear girl, "she is due here even now. If you will go
into the library I will meet her, tell her mother has a caller, and
propose that we go to the library. When we get there I will lose myself
for your sake, and, like the famous witches, 'dissolve into thin air.'"
"She is not married?" asked Browning.
"No," replied his sister.
"Heart whole?" Browning queried.
"How should I know?" answered his sister; "but there is the door-bell.
Hurry Jack! This way to the library!"
Rose Jenvie came in. Grace met and greeted her in the hall.
"Why, Grace," said Rose, "you have been crying. What is wrong, dear?"
"Nothing is wrong," said Grace, "nothing at all, and I have not been
crying." And all the time the tears were running down her cheeks.
"Why," exclaimed Rose, "what in the world is the matter? What has so
upset you this morning?"
"I tell you, nothing," answered Grace. "Mamma has a caller in the parlor;
let us go to the library."
Reaching the door, Grace opened it for Rose, and then said, pettishly,
"There! I have forgotten a letter I wish to show you; go in, and I will
be back directly."
Rose naturally walked in, when Grace closed the door behind her, turned
the key noiselessly and fled.
The curtains were half drawn, the day was cloudy, and Rose advanced two
or three steps into the room before she discovered another occupant.
That occupant rose as she stopped. She saw a manly fellow with hair cut
short and full mustache. He saw a woman a little above the medium height,
with hazel eyes, full and proud, a fair, clear-cut face, a slight but
perfectly developed form, and the face wore a look which it seemed to him
was sad, despite its beauty, as though some thought within made a shadow
on the fair young life.
The young man gazed a moment, then raising and opening his arms, in a
voice that shook perceptibly, said, "Rose!"
She gazed a moment, then with a joyous cry of "O, Jack!" sprang into the
outstretched arms, and for the first time in their lives their lips met.
There were tears in Jack's eyes; the tears were raining down Rose's face,
and both were shaking as with a burning ague. Browning sank upon a sofa,
still clasping the fair girl in his strong arms, and seating her beside
him.
"O, Rose," he said, "I have dreamed of this meeting ever since I left
you, by sea and land, under the sunshine, in the deep mine's depths, by
day and night. I love you, I do not know when I did not love you; I have
come for you, will you be my wife?"
Then Rose said: "You went away without a good-bye or any message. You
never wrote. You have been gone more than four years." But with a smile
which was enchantment to Jack, she added: "If I could have found any one
to marry me, I would have shown you, but no one would, because when I was
young I kept such bad company."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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