The beginning part--that tumult of youth, those dizzy jumps that we have seen her in--was frightfully exciting, frightfully absorbing. She was so tremendously absorbed, so terrifically intent, so tremendously eager, that the transition from the Sultana’s to Aunt Belle’s, and the start with Mr. Simcox, and the transition from Aunt Belle’s to independence in the boarding house, was done with scarcely a visit--and then a rather grudged and rather impatient visit--to the rectory home. No, the absorption was too profound for much of that: indeed, for much of home in any form. Letters came from Rosalie’s mother three and four times a week. In the beginning, when fresh left school and at Aunt Belle’s, Rosalie always kissed the dear handwriting on the envelope, and kissed the dear signature before returning the letters to their envelopes; and she would sit up late at night writing enormously long and passionately devoted letters in reply. But she wasn’t going back; she wasn’t going down; no, not even for a week-end, “my own darling and beloved little mother,” until she had found an employment and was established on her own feet, “just like one of the boys.” Then she would come, oh, wouldn’t she just! She would have an annual holiday, “just as men have,” and she would come down to the dear, beloved old rectory and she would give her own sweet, adored little mother the most wonderful time she ever could imagine! Rosalie would sit up late at night writing these most loving letters, pages and pages long; and her mother’s letters (which always arrived by the first post) she would carry about with her all day and read again before answering. And yet.... The fond intention in thus carrying them on her person instead of bestowing them in her writing case was to read them a dozen times in the opportunities the day would afford. And yet... Somehow it was not done. The day of the receipt of the very first letter was generous of such opportunities and at each of them the letter was remembered... but not drawn forth. Rosalie did not attempt to analyse why not. Her repression, each time, of the suggestion that the letter should now be taken out and read again was not a deliberate repression. She merely had a negative impulse towards the action and accepted it; and so negligible was the transaction in her record of her thoughts, so mere a cypher in the petty cash of the day’s ledger, that in the evening when, gone up to bed, the letter was at last drawn out and kissed and read and answered, and then kissed and read again, no smallest feeling of remorse was suffered by her to reflect that the intended reading in the dozen opportunities of the day had not been done.