Mrs. Sturgiss returned brightly, “Oh, I know it. I know it well.” She paused and her voice had a thoughtful note. “But even then.... Use the long mirror, my dear; the light is better. Even then, there can be few as,--as much in it as you. You know, my husband has an immense idea of your abilities. He has spoken of you so much. Do you know, you are a great surprise to me, now I see you. I could only imagine from all John’s idea of you a rather terrible looking blue-stocking, as we used to call the clever women.” She came and stood by Rosalie, regarding the image in the glass that Rosalie regarded. She said simply, “But you are beautiful.” A very odd feeling, akin to tears--but for what on earth tears?--quickened in Rosalie. She turned sharply from the mirror. “I am quite ready now.” She pretended she had not heard. Mrs. Sturgiss said, “My dear, do you like it, being what you are?” It was a great rescue for Rosalie to be able to spring away from that odd feeling (in her bosom and in her throat) by swift animation. “Oh, I love it. I simply love it. It is everything to me, everything in the world!” Mrs. Sturgiss opened the door. “No, you go first, my dear. But if I had had a dear girl, such as you, I would have wished her to stay with me at home.” She had made with her hand the gesture of her wish that Rosalie should precede her from the room. Rosalie impulsively touched the extended fingers. “But, Mrs. Sturgiss, don’t you see, that’s just it, the idea there is now. If you had had a daughter and she had stayed at home--well, let that go, while you were with her. But when you died and left her, what would there be--don’t you see it?--what would there be for her then?” Mrs. Sturgiss pressed the warm young hand. “But I would have left her married, a dear wife and a dear mother.” “Oh, that!” cried Rosalie and her stronger personality carried off the exchanges in a laugh. Mrs. Sturgiss thought the expression and the tone meant, happily, that marriage might happen to any one, in the market as much as in the home. Rosalie, with all the fierce contempt that her “Oh, that!” conveyed to her secret self, was ridden strongly away from emotionalism in the conversation. Her thought as they went downstairs was, “If I were to instruct her in the cat-men! Her horror!”