Does it annoy you, dear mamma? Why did you not tell me so before?” returned Rose gently, putting away her drawing-apparatus as she spoke. No one would have called Rose Arundel handsome, or even pretty, and yet her face had a charm about it&mdas ... Read more

Does it annoy you, dear mamma? Why did you not tell me so before?” returned Rose gently, putting away her drawing-apparatus as she spoke. No one would have called Rose Arundel handsome, or even pretty, and yet her face had a charm about it—a charm that lurked in the depths of her dreamy grey eyes, and played about the corners of her mouth when she smiled, and sat like a glory upon her high, smooth forehead. Both she and her mother were clad in the deepest mourning, and the traces of some recent heartfelt sorrow might be discerned in either face. A stranger would have taken them for sisters, rather than for mother and daughter; for there were lines of thought on Rose’s brow which her twenty years scarcely warranted, while Mrs. Arundel, at eight-and-thirty, looked full six years younger, despite her widow’s cap. I have been thinking, Rose,” resumed the elder lady, after a short pause, during which she continued pacing the room most assiduously, “I have been thinking that if we were to settle near some large town, I could give lessons in music and singing: my voice is as good as ever it was—listen;” and, seating herself at a small cottage piano, she began to execute some difficult solfeggi in a rich, clear soprano, with a degree of ease and grace which proved her to be a finished singer; and, apparently carried away by the feeling the music had excited, she allowed her voice to flow, as it were unconsciously, into the words of an Italian song, which she continued for some moments, without noticing a look of pain which shot across her daughter’s pale features. At length, suddenly breaking off, she exclaimed in a voice broken with emotion, “Ah! what am I singing?” and, burying her face in her handkerchief, she burst into a flood of tears: it had been her husband’s favourite song. Recovering herself more quickly than from the violence of her grief might have been expected, she was about to resume her walk, when, observing for the first time the expression of her daughter’s face, she sprang towards her, and placing her arm caressingly round her waist, kissed her tenderly, exclaiming in a tone of the fondest affection, “Rose, my own darling, I have distressed you by my heedlessness, but I forget everything now!” She paused; then added, in a calmer tone, “Really, love, I have been thinking seriously of what I said just now about teaching. If I could but get a sufficient number of pupils, it would be much better than allowing you to go out as a governess, for we could live together then; and I know I shall never be able to part with you. Besides, you would be miserable, managing naughty children all day long—throwing away your talents on a set of stupid little wretches,—such drudgery would ennui you to death Less