sudden sense of shame and anguish that came over her, Rose ran to him, caught his hand from the lock, and turned the key; then, as if she could not bear to see him standing there with that vacant smile upon his lips, she dropped into a chair and covered up her face.
The cry, the act, and more than all, the sight of the bowed head would have sobered poor Charlie, if it had not been too late. He looked about the room, with a vague, despairing look, as if to find the reason fast slipping from his control: but heat and cold, excitement and reckless pledging of many healths, had done their work too well to make instant sobriety possible; and owning his defeat with a groan, he turned away and threw himself face-downward on the sofa; one of the saddest sights the new year looked upon as it came in.
As she sat there with hidden eyes, Rose felt that something dear to her was dead for ever. The ideal, which all women cherish, look for, and too often think they have found when love glorifies a mortal man, is hard to give up, especially when it comes in the likeness of the first lover who touches a young girl's heart. Rose had just begun to feel that perhaps this cousin, despite his faults, might yet become the hero that he sometimes looked; and the thought that she might be his inspiration was growing sweet to her, although she had not entertained it until very lately. Alas, how short the tender dream had been, how rude
