For several days after Mrs.Russell's party she tried to keep up, but the laws of nature had been outraged, and now she lay all day in a darkened room, moaning with pain, and wondering why the faces of those around her were so sad and mournful.
"Jenny," said she one day when the physician, as usual, had left the room without a word of encouragement--"Jenny, what does make you look so blue and forlorn.

I hope you don't fancy I'm going to die?
Of course I'm not." Here a coughing fit ensued, and after it was over, she continued, "Isn't George Moreland expected soon ?" Jenny nodded, and Rose proceeded, "I must, and _will_ be well before he comes, for 'twill never do to yield the field to that Howard girl, who they say is contriving every way to get him,--coaxing round old Aunt Martha, and all that.

But how ridiculous! George Moreland, with his fastidious, taste, marry a pauper!" and the sick girl's fading cheek glowed, and her eyes grew brighter at the absurd idea! Just then Mr.Lincoln entered the room.

He had been consulting with his wife the propriety of taking Rose to her grandmother's in the country.

She would thus be saved the knowledge of his failure, which could not much longer be kept a secret; and besides that, they all, sooner or later, must leave the house in which they were living; and he judged it best to remove his daughter while she was able to endure the journey.