perhaps, if the events of the next few hours had come to pass at any other time, they would not have left the same mark upon her life. as it was, rosamund had come to that state of moral restlessness which is bound either to open the windows of the soul to fresher air and wider fields of vision, or else to induce the peevish discontent which so often falls to the lot of the idle woman. although she consciously longed for happiness, she knew that she was not sentimentally unhappy; neither was she fatuously so, like her sister. cecilia was only one of many women of her age and class, who imagine that possession brings enjoyment. she often declared that if she had as much as her acquaintances she could make herself content, but that if she had more than they she could be supremely happy. rosamund had no such illusions; her clear mind had never been perverted to the futility of such ambitions, although there was nothing in her environment to suggest a satisfying substitute for them. if she was restless, it was not for something she might not have. it pleased her pride to think that she valued neither wealth nor social eminence, but accepted them only as her birthright; but, as in the case of the infatuated flood, she resented any sign of invasion upon the sacred precincts which for generations had respected their berkleys and their stanfields and randalls. it was her pride which had induced her to neglect, as unimportant, the things cecilia yearned for; rosamund randall was to be above manifestations of wealth—although rosamund randall was not above occasional haughty stubbornness.

the charitable pastimes in which some of her friends indulged held no appeal for her; she was too impatient for immediate results to be successful in them. she vaguely felt that some fault must lie with the unfortunate, and she could not imagine that the individual might be interesting. even eleanor's experience, although it had stirred her heart to pity, brought her no closer to the mass of suffering. she had no particular talents, no pet enthusiasms; yet her intelligence was too keen to be satisfied with the round of days that constituted life for cecilia, as well as for most of their friends. nothing suggested itself as a substitute for them, and to-day not even the charms of nature satisfied her, however beautiful the country through which the big car carried them. but insensibly it made its effect upon her. away from the scars of battle, through orchard and grass-land, between fields of ripening corn and pastures where drowsy cattle were ruminating in shady fence-corners; past little white farmhouses with red barns at their backs, and tangled gardens where bees feasted in front of them; up towards the hills, through stretches of cool woodland, where little spring-fed brooklets crossed the road, and where the turns were so narrow that the call of the horn had often to pierce the stillness; out again upon cleared spaces, and at last far up on the mountain-tops—so they traveled, rosamund alone seeming to notice the beauties they passed so swiftly.

cecilia kept up an easy chatter with the two men. flood seemingly had eyes for the older woman only, yet he was keenly aware of the girl beside him. all the way he was inwardly cursing himself for the ill-timed compliment which had silenced her, and he was too good a judge of human nature to follow his first mistake with a second. if rosamund wished to be silent, no interruption to her revery should come from him, at least. as there was only the one way across the mountains, pendleton had put away his road map and was leaning sideways over the back of the seat, facing cecilia and flood; the three found plenty to talk about, and ignored rosamund's pensive withdrawal.

for miles they had passed no living thing; even the birds and woodland creatures seemed to have gone to sleep; and the chauffeur, taking them along at second speed, believed it unnecessary to sound his horn at every winding of the road.

then, so suddenly that no one knew just what had happened, there was a shriek from somewhere, a wild cry from the man at the wheel, a stopping of the car so quickly as to throw the women forward and flood to his knees. pendleton, facing back, was the only one who could see the road behind them; with a cry that was either oath or prayer, he leaped from the car and ran back, the chauffeur scarcely four yards behind him. flood scrambled up and rosamund sprang to her feet. cecilia covered her ears with her hands, and was the only one who could voice her horror.

"we have killed someone!" she cried wildly, crouching down to shut out sight as well as sound. "we have killed someone! oh, what shall we do? what shall we do? i cannot see it—i cannot stand the sight of it!"

but no one heeded her outcry. flood had opened the door and was speeding after the others; and rosamund, too, as quickly as her trembling would allow her, ran towards the little group at the roadside.

when she reached them, they were bending over two forms—a boy and a young girl. the boy had been struck by the step of the car, and lay huddled where its force had thrown him; the girl lay beside him, her face down in the weeds and grass. pendleton and the chauffeur, with ghastly faces, were feeling for her heart. as rosamund came up they turned her upon her back. rosamund tore off her gloves, and pressed her hand against the girl's throat.

"i think she has only fainted," she said. "get a cold thermos bottle, someone!"

the chauffeur ran to do her bidding, but before he got back the girl had opened her eyes. rosamund bent closer.

"are you hurt?" she asked. "did we hit you? can you speak to me?" but the girl could not answer at first; then the iced water and something from flood's pocket flask revived her, and she sat up, leaning against rosamund.

"gee!" she said. "i was scared! what d'yer think of an automobile up here! where's tim?"

the men had left the girl to rosamund, and were kneeling by the child; rosamund glanced over her shoulder at them. "i'm afraid he is hurt," she said. "do you think you can take care of yourself for a moment while i see? i wouldn't try to stand up quite yet, if i were you."

"oh, sure," the girl replied. "they ain't anything the matter with me. you go right on."

but all of rosamund's ministrations failed of any response from the boy. flood's varied experience had given him a passing acquaintance with broken bones, but he could find none in the little limbs that were thin to emaciation; his search revealed only a few scratches on the child's face, and a cut on his head. at last he looked across the little form at rosamund.

"i'm afraid there's concussion," he said. "we shall have to take him to a doctor."

the girl had risen, and was standing, with arms akimbo, looking down at them. "doctor ogilvie," she said at once. "he's the one. he's right over at the summit."

flood looked quickly at rosamund. "ogilvie! i had no idea his territory extended this far!" then he turned to the girl. "so you know doctor ogilvie? how far are we from the summit?"

"gee! i dunno! it's awful far to walk it, i know that!"

rosamund looked up with troubled eyes. "there must be some house near by," she said, "where we could take him. i don't believe he ought to be carried very far. do you live near here?" she asked the girl.

"laws, no! we live in the city, him an' me. we ain't any kin, y'understand; he's a tubercler, an' my eyes give out, and we're just visitin' mother cary."

flood was becoming impatient. "well, where does the cary woman live?" he demanded. "we don't need your family history, my girl."

instantly the girl's black eyes flashed, and her chin went up. "well, an' you ain't goin' to get it, my man!" she returned. "i know the likes of you; seen you by the million!"

she glared up at him belligerently, but rosamund laid her hand on her shoulder. "don't," she said quietly. "where is this place where you're staying?"

"it's just back of the woods there. the road's on up a piece, about two squares; yer can't miss it, 'cause it's the only one there is."

so they lifted the child, and laid him carefully, on the broad back seat. they decided that mrs. maxwell and pendleton should wait beside the road, while rosamund and flood saw to the boy's safety, and the girl rode with the chauffeur to point the way. she seemed but little impressed by the accident, and greatly pleased at the motor ride.

"laws, but i wish the girls at the factory could see yetta weise settin' up here," she remarked as she took her place.

as she had told them, the house was not far; and notwithstanding her anxiety for the injured boy, rosamund looked at it in amazement, so unlike was it to anything she had ever seen, so quaintly pretty, so tidy, so homelike.

it stood on the hillside, a few yards back from the road. from a little red gate set in the middle of the whitest of tiny fences a narrow brick path led straight to the front door. the upper story of the house overhung the lower, making a shady space beneath that was paved with bricks and made cheery and comfortable with wooden benches piled with crocks and bright tin milk pans set out to air; and all about the little white farm-buildings wound narrow brick paths bordered with flowers—geraniums, nasturtiums, pansies, with, here and there, groups of house plants in tin cans and earthen pots, set outside for their summer holiday. unaccustomed though she was to such ingenuous simplicity of decoration, rosamund could not but recognize it as a haven of peace, a little home where love and time had impressed their indelible marks of beauty.

the big car drew up to the gate very gently; yetta called, loudly and shrilly; flood lifted the boy and carried him towards the house, and rosamund followed; but halfway up the path she paused, half in amazement, half in repulsion.

yetta's call had brought to the doorway the strangest of small creatures—a tiny, bent old woman. she braced herself on one side against the doorway, on the other with a queer little crutch with padded top, held by a strap across her shoulder; as she came forward to meet them she moved the crutch, like some strange crab, obliquely, grotesquely, yet with the adeptness of the life-long cripple. she was evidently startled, even frightened; but when her eyes met rosamund's she smiled. at once the girl's feeling of repulsion vanished, for on the tiny old face there was none of the suffering and regret that so often mark the deformed. it was not drawn or heavy; plain and homely though it was, it was made radiant by a world-embracing mother-love, transfigured by that quality of tenderness and sweetness that rosamund had learned to associate with pictured medi?val saints and martyrs. with mother cary's first smile, something entered the girl's consciousness which never again left it.

the old woman paid no attention to yetta's voluble explanations, nor wasted any time on questions.

"take him into the room on the left and lay him on the sofy," she directed, and hobbled along behind the little procession; but when they had lain the still unconscious child in the shaded best room, she looked from flood to rosamund for explanation, with a dignity which could not fail to impress them.

"maybe he's just been knocked senseless," she said, when they had told her all they could. "but anyways, we ought to have doctor ogilvie here's soon as ever we can. if the young lady'll help me undress the little feller, you can take yetta, sir, to show you the way."

flood hesitated; to undress the child would be a strange task for rosamund. "can't i do that before we go?" he asked.

but the old woman had no such hesitation. "no, you can't," she said, "an' i wish you'd hurry. timmy ain't strong, anyway."

so, with a troubled look, flood followed yetta, and in a moment rosamund heard the purr of the motor as the car sped off towards the summit; then, as she afterwards remembered with surprise and wonder, she found herself obeying the old woman's directions.

"now, honey, you jest lift the little feller right up in your arms, bein' careful of his head; he don't weigh no more'n a picked chicken. we'll get him to bed time the doctor gets here, an' have some water b'ilin' an' some ice brought in, case he wants either one. here, right in here—my house is mostly all on one floor, so's i can manage to scramble around in it when pap's in the fields. that's the way—no, he won't need a piller. i'll take off his little clo'es whilst you lift him—that's right. my! think o' that gentleman wantin' to do for him—as if any woman with a heart in her body could let a man handle sech a little thing's this! but he didn't know, did he, honey?"

and strangely enough rosamund was conscious of a wave of tenderness towards the pathetic little figure, limp and emaciated; long afterwards she realized that people always did and felt what mother cary expected them to. she even bathed the little dusty feet, while the old woman hobbled about to bring her different things, talking all the while.

"pore little soul, seems like he had enough without this—not but what i reckon he'll come out o' this a heap sight easier than he will the other. not a soul on the top o' the yearth to belong to, he hasn't; sent here to fatten up an' live out o' doors, 'count o' being a tubercler. no, honey, he ain't nothin' to pap an' me 'ceptin' jest one o' the pore little lambs that have a right to any spare love an' shelter an' cuddlin' that's layin' around the world waitin' for sech as him. i used to wonder why the lord let sech pore little things stay in the world, until i found out how much good they do to folks that look after 'em. land! i wouldn't be without one of 'em on my hands now, not for more'n i can say. what? oh, yes, dearie, i take one or more of 'em and build 'em up an' get 'em well, with doctor ogilvie's tellin' me how; an' when they go back to the city all well again, i jest take one or two more. pap an' me wouldn't know what to do now, ef we didn't have some pore little thing to look after. i'm jest that selfish, i begrudge everybody else that has a bigger house the room they got for more of 'em."

when the child had been made clean and cool, and the old woman had shown rosamund how to draw in the blinds and leave the room in pleasant shadow, she led the way out to the paved place in front of the house.

"you look all tuckered out, honey," she said, when rosamund had sunk wearily into a rush-seated armchair, "an' i'm goin' to get you some fresh milk."

so for a few minutes the girl was alone, with time to think over the crowding events of the past half hour, which seemed almost like a day. one emotion had come closely upon another, and now she was in this strange little harbor where, apparently, only kind winds blew, the storms of the world outside, a harbor where weak vessels found repair, where passers-by were welcomed and supplied with strength to go on. subconsciously she wondered whether it might not be the harbor of a new, fair land, herself the storm-buffeted traveler about to find shelter. then, more in weariness of spirit than in bodily fatigue, she drew the long hatpin from her hat and tossed it aside, leaning her head back against the stone of the house, and closed her eyes.

when mother cary returned with a glass of creamy milk, she noted the girl's pallor, the shadows her long lashes cast on her white cheeks.

"i wouldn't feel too bad about it," she said. "the little feller can't be hurt very bad, and i reckon it was jest bein' so scared an' so weak, anyway, that made him go off in his head like that."

rosamund could not confess that her thoughts had been of herself rather than upon the injured child. "do you think he will recover?" she asked.

"well, what doctor ogilvie can't do ain't to be done, i know that much," mother cary replied. "folks do say it's an ill wind blows nobody any good, an' it cert'n'y was his ill wind blew us good; 'cause if he hadn't been that sick he couldn't live in the city, he never would 'a' come to the mountings, an' i'm sure i don't see how we ever did get along without him. why, he's that good a doctor folks still come up here from the city to see him; and many's the one stays at the summit just to be where he can look after them; and widder speers that he lives with told me that doctors from 'way off send for him to talk over sick people with them—jest to ask him what to do, like. oh, doctor ogilvie can do anything anybody can!"

rosamund was amused, in spite of herself, at the old woman's na?veté. "he was sick, then, when he came?" she asked, idly.

"yes, but you'd never 'a' known it," mother cary told her. "land! how he did get about from place to place, huntin' out other folks that was ailin'! he hadn't been up here more'n a month before he knew every soul in these mountings, which is more'n i do, though i've lived here forty year an' more. he jest took right a holt, as you might say. that's how come i begun to take care of these pore little helpless city things.

"first time he come here, he looked all about the place when he was leavin', an' he says to pap, 'plenty o' good room an' good air you got here, an' i guess there's plenty o' good food, too, ain't there?' pap, he says, 'well, we manage to make out, when the ol' lady feels like cookin'!' an' the doctor laughs an' says to me, 'ain't got quite as much to do as ye had when that son an' daughter o' yours were home here, have ye? don't ye miss 'em?' at that the tears jest come to my eyes, like they always do whenever i think o' my own child'en bein' two or three miles away from me on farms o' their own; an' the doctor he smiles an' says, 'well, i'm goin' to supply your want,' he says.

"pap an' me never thought 'ny more about it tell a week or so later when we see him drive up behind that old white horse o' his with the puniest little boy alongside o' him ever i set my two eyes on. 'here's something to keep you from bein' lonesome, mis' cary,' he says; an' ever since then, it bein' goin' on five year, i've had one or another o' them pore little—land! there he comes now, without a sign of a hat on his red head! ef he ain't that forgetful!"

flood's big car had whirled rapidly into sight along the woodland road, and before it stopped the doctor was out and into the house. when mother cary hobbled in, rosamund remaining to say a word or two to flood, the doctor was already bending over the injured child.

cecilia was waving a frantic hand from the car, and rosamund and flood walked down the little path to the red gate.

"where is your hat?" was the first thing mrs. maxwell asked rosamund. "do get in! we've miles and miles to go, and we've wasted hours! i'm sure i don't see why they couldn't have sent for the doctor in the ordinary way; why, the road back there was something terrible!"

rosamund was conscious of an absurd longing to slap or pinch cecilia; she was really too vapid for polite endurance.

"we can't possibly leave until we know how badly hurt the child is," she said, and deliberately turned and walked back into the cottage.

after a moment or two flood followed her, leaving cecilia to pour out her indignation upon pendleton.

the doctor was just coming out of the little bedroom, and nodded to them both in a general way. rosamund looked at him curiously. she noted with some amusement that his hair was, as mother cary had somewhat more than suggested, frankly red; not even the best-intentioned politeness could have called it sandy. he was of average height, with keen eyes which looked black, although she afterwards knew them to be gray; his breadth of shoulder made him seem less tall than he was, and his frame was rather lightly covered, although his very evident restless energy seemed more responsible for it than any evidence of ill-health.

"must have jabbed his ribs," he said, looking at flood with a half smile, and seemingly ignoring the presence of this girl from his old familiar world. "cracked a couple of them, but they're soon mended in a kiddie. only thing now is this slight concussion; needs careful nursing for a few days."

then he turned, looked squarely into rosamund's face, and issued his orders in precisely the manner of a doctor to a nurse, without a trace of hesitation, apparently without a shadow of doubt that she would obey.

"keep ice on his head, you know, and watch him every minute through the night. he's not likely to move; but if he should become conscious——" he continued his directions carefully, explicitly, all the while looking at rosamund intently, as if to impress them upon her.

while he was speaking, flood's face flushed darkly. with the doctor's last phrase, "only be sure to watch him every minute," he spoke sharply. "you are making a mistake, doctor ogilvie," he said. "miss randall is not a nurse."

the doctor instantly replied, "i know she isn't, but we'll have to do the best we can with her!"

flood's face grew redder still; rosamund smiled a little. "miss randall cannot possibly stay here," flood said. "that is entirely out of the question. i am willing to do all i can for the child, and i am very glad he is not seriously hurt, although the accident was, i think, unavoidable. i will send a nurse to-morrow—two, if you want them. but you will have to get along with the help here for to-night."

"haven't any," said the doctor, briefly. "yetta's a child, and mother cary goes down to her daughter's where there's a new baby."

for a moment no one spoke. mother cary was smiling at rosamund, and her look drew the girl's from the two men. then her smile answered the old woman's.

in a flash of inspiration she knew that she had found an answer to her questions of the earlier hours; something in her heart drew her symbolically toward the little silent, helpless child in the darkened room behind her, some mother-feeling as new and wonderful as the dawn of life. both flood and the doctor remembered, through all their lives, the look of exaltation on her face when she spoke.

"i will stay," she said, quietly, and walked into the darkened room.