heart fell down and worshipped her, never after to swerve from its allegiance.

[78]

“You must be Mr. Friendleton,” the maiden said, courtesying bewitchingly. “I knew your ship was in.”

“I—I have been minding my luggage,” he stammered, rather irrelevantly, his eyes fastened upon her face.

“Be pleased to enter,” said she, smiling a little at the boldness and unconsciousness of his stare. “Your room has been preserved as you left it at your departure. My aunt, good Mistress Henshaw, as I wrote you, straitly enjoined in her will that everything should be kept for you as you had left it. Her affections were marvellously set upon you.”

That he should be allowed to enter under[79] the same roof with this beautiful creature seemed to John Friendleton the height of bliss, and he had no words to express his delight when he learned that Mistress Rose expected him to take up his abode there as in former times. Her aunt had wished it; had especially spoken of it in her will, and so it was to be.

[79]

It would be impossible to pretend that Friendleton struggled much against this proposition, when inclination so strongly pleaded for the carrying out of the wishes of his dead friend; and in this way he became the lodger of young Mistress Rose.

III.

It did not long escape the eye of the young man that his new landlady wore always at her throat a cluster of the white, waxy blossoms of the tuberose. The circumstance was in itself sufficiently curious and unusual to excite his attention, and it recalled to his mind the plant he had given to Mistress Henshaw. He wondered what had been the fate of his gift, and one day he ventured to ask Mistress Rose about it. For reply she led him to the room formerly occupied[80] by her aunt, and showed him the tuberose in a quaint pot. It had grown tall and thrifty, and half a dozen slim stalks upon it stood up stoutly, covered with buds, which showed here and there touches of dull red evolved in their transformation from green to white.

It

[80]

“I marvel how it hath increased,” John said.

“It hath thriven marvellously,” she replied. “Never before hath it been known that the plant would bloom throughout all the year, but 

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