Your letter told me nothing that I was not prepared for. But I don't
know how to put into words even a small part of my hopes for you. John
is--excepting my own dear husband--the best man in the world. You will
be happy, and proud, as I am happy and proud; we both send our love,
and wish we might be with you on that beautiful morning that is coming
so soon. But we cannot, for almost as soon as we get back to New York
from this lovely Columbia Valley we shall have to sail for Europe. So
we can only send our love, my darling; and Timmy is sending something
else by express.
I am so happy that I cannot help wondering whether this is really
myself; yet ever and always, sweet, I know that I am I--YOUR ELEANOR.
Rosamund had kept that letter to read last; and as she folded it back
into its envelope there were tears in her eyes, so that for a moment
she did not see the familiar figure of a white horse, that was coming
upon her with the gentle ambling trot that White Rosy fell into when
her master was in one of his absent-minded moods. It was a sort of
up-and-downness of a trot, one of Rosy's great achievements. Ogilvie
always said that it was worthy of everyone's admiration, since it made
a remarkably good effect with the minimum of effort.
When she had come up to the place where Rosamund waited, White Rosy
stopped of her own accord, edged toward the side of the road, and began
to nibble at the young green things already burgeoning there.
Ogilvie looked, without speaking, at the girl waiting for him at the
roadside. She was not smiling, yet her whole look seemed a smile. She
was standing with her chin uplifted, her eyelids a little drooped; he
thought she was the most beautiful thing in all the beauty of the
spring-kissed world.
"Don't move!" he said. "I just want to look at you!"
Then slowly the smile came. She turned her head away to look at him
roguishly, sideways.
"Is that all you want?" she asked.
"No!" he cried, explosively; and with a little bubbling laugh she
sprang up to the empty place at his side, and turned her face towards
him.
Presently he asked, looking off to the mountain with a very casual air.
"Have you seen Grace to-day?"