"I used to."
Silence again.
"I like her very much. I think she is sweet, and she bears hard things
bravely. Belle says, since her father died they haven't any money, so Miss
Celia works, and the boys are troublesome, and her mother is ill a great
deal."
Another silence.
"Uncle Allan, was it any harm for me to know her? Belle said there was a
quarrel, and Aunt Genevieve said, 'We have nothing to do with the Fairs.'"
As he flicked the ash from his cigar, Allan smiled at Rosalind's
unconscious imitation of Genevieve's tone.
"I see no reason why you should take up other people's quarrels," he said
gravely.
Then Rosalind told him of her first meeting with Celia, and the incident
of the rose. "But I think now I must have been mistaken," she added.
"Perhaps," said Allan, and again he smiled to himself in the twilight, so
vividly did the story recall the occasional passionate outbursts of the
child Celia, usually so gentle, so timidly reserved.
That strange letter of hers had puzzled while it hurt. Far away from the
scene of the trouble, he could not understand the bitterness of the
strife. That for a village quarrel--some unkind words, perhaps--she could
break the bond between them--was this the Celia he thought he knew so
well?
The wound had rankled, but after a time he told himself it was for the
best. Travel and study had broadened and matured him, and he could smile
now as he recognized, what was unsuspected at the time, that his mother
had planned these years of absence in the determination to cure him of a
boyish fancy which her eyes had been keen enough to detect.
And yet--his thought would dwell upon her as she stood on the step, her
arm around Belle, the laughter fading from her face. Not the little
schoolgirl, but a woman, gracious and tender.
Rosalind danced away to join Maurice and Katherine, whose humble penitence
had restored her to favor; and over the hedge came the sound of their
voices singing an old tune. On the still night air, in their clear treble,
the words carried distinctly:--
"Should auld acquaintance be forgot?"--