"Nice walk," said Allison, dejectedly.

"I have never been back since--since I was left alone. Sometimes I have
thought my little house ought to have someone to look after it. A house
gets lonely, too, with no one to care for it."

"I suppose so. Is Rose coming back?"

"I have often thought of the little Summer cottages, huddled together
like frightened children, when the life and laughter had gone and Winter
was swiftly approaching. How cold their walls must be and how empty the
heart of a little house, when there is no fire there! So like a woman,
when love has gone out of her life."

Allison sighed and began to sharpen his pencil. Madame observed that his
hands were trembling.

"I see," he said. "I don't deserve to know where she is, and Rose
doesn't want me chasing after her. Never mind--I had it coming to me, I
guess. What a hopeless idiot I've been!"

"Yes," agreed Madame, cordially. "Carlyle says that 'there is no other
entirely fatal person.'"

Something in her tone gave him courage for another question. "Once for
all, Aunt Francesca, will you tell me where Rose is?"

"George Washington was a great man," Madame observed. "He never told a
lie. If he had promised not to tell anything, he never told it." Then
she added, with swift irrelevance, "this used to be a very pleasant time