ROSE MACLEOD
BY ALICE BROWN
WITH A FRONTISPIECE
By W. W. CHURCHILL, Jr.
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1907 AND 1908 BY ALICE BROWN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published April 1908
Rose MacLeod
CONTENTS
I
II
III
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII
XIV
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
XXXII
XXXIII
ROSE MACLEOD
I
Madam Fulton and her granddaughter Electra were sitting at thebreakfast-table. It was a warm yet inspiriting day in early spring, and,if the feel and look of it were not enough, the garden under thedining-room windows told the season's hour like a floral clock. Theearliest blossoms had been pushed onward by the mounting spirit of theyear, and now the firstlings of May were budding. The great Georgianhouse, set in the heart of this processional bloom, showed the mellowtints of time. It had an abundant acreage, diversified, at first hand,not only by this terraced garden in the rear, but by another gone towild abandon on the west, and an orchard stretching away into levelfields and, beyond them, groves of pine.
These dining-room windows, three of them, side by side, and nowunshaded, gave large outlook on a beautiful and busy world where theterrace mounted in green, to be painted later with red peony balls, andwhere the eye, still traveling, rested in satisfaction on the fringe oflocusts at the top.
Inside the house the sense of beauty could be fully fed. Here was asweet consistency, the sacred past in untouched being, that time whenfurniture was made in England, and china was the product of long voyagesand solemn hoarding in corner cabinets with diamond panes. Life here wasreflected dimly from polished surfaces and serenely accentuated byquaint carvings and spindle legs. Here was "atmosphere"—the theatre ofsimple and austere content.
Madam Fulton outwardly fitted her background as a shepherdess fits afan. She was a sprite of an