Betrothal

But, in real life, things were pitifully different. People who ought not to die did so, and those who could well be spared clung to mortal existence as though they had drunk deeply of the fabled fountain of immortal youth.

Descending to personalities, Rosemary reflected upon the ironical Fate that had taken her father and mother away from her, and spared Grandmother and Aunt Matilda. Or, if she could have gone with her father and mother, it would have been all right--Rosemary had no deep longing for life considered simply as existence. Bitterness and the passion of revolt swayed her for the moment, though she knew that the mood would pass, as it always did, when she took her soul into the sanctuary of the hills.

A Mystery

Dispassionately she observed her feet, stretched out in front of her, and compared them with Mrs. Lee's. Rosemary's shoes were heavy and coarse, they had low, broad heels and had been patched and mended until the village cobbler had proclaimed himself at the end of his resources. Once or twice she had said, half-fearfully, that she needed new shoes, but Grandmother had not seemed to hear.

Father had meant for her to have everything she wanted--he had said so, in the letter which at that moment lay against Rosemary's bitter young heart. He would have given her a pair of slippers like those Mrs. Lee had worn the day she went there to tea--black satin, with high heels and thin soles, cunningly embroidered with tiny steel beads. How small and soft the foot had seemed above the slipper; how subtly the flesh had gleamed through the fine black silk stocking!