CHAPTER VIII. CONVALESCENCE. To be slowly recovering from a severe illness is almost like being again a very little child. So thought Rose Macleod, as she lay between lavender-scented sheets, in the quaint stone cottage, whose deep old-fashioned window seats, and low whitewashed ceilings, were becoming as familiar to her as the stately halls of her home. The protracted leisure of convalescence was growing burdensome to her. So many days had she watched the lights and shadows woven throughout the greenery, just outside her window, or listened to the weird measure of the rain when the wind surged like a sea through the foliage, or held her breath for joy when a flying bird pulsed vividly across the sky, or counted the milk-white flowers of the locust tree, as they strewed the ground with blossoms, or noted the exact moment when the morning-glories softly clasped their purple petals together, as though unable to contain a greater fulness of joy than was brought by the summer morning. It was now early evening, and Rose gave vent to a little uncontrollable sigh. Mrs. Dunlop came as quickly to the bedside as though the sigh had been the sound of a trumpet. She was a very pleasant object for weary invalid eyes to rest upon. Her dark hair was satin-smooth, her voice and movements were quiet and refined. There was in her face that mingling of shyness and sincerity, irradiated by a look of the keenest intelligence, which reminded Rose of Allan, between whom and his mother there was a strong resemblance. "I have something to tell you," she said gently. "As my prisoner you have behaved in such an exemplary manner, keeping all the rules of the institution, and making no attempt to run away, that I have decided to give you the freedom of another room." "Oh, am I to go into another room?" Had a voyage to Europe been proposed to her it could scarcely have suggested pleasanter ideas of change. "A new wall-paper, and a new window! What more could I ask for? But how am I to get there? What means of transportation have you?" "That is just what I am thinking of. I could dress you in my gray wrapper, and then--would you mind if Allan were to help me to lift you to the couch in my room?" Rose shuddered a little. A faint pink stained for a moment the whiteness of her cheek. "I shouldn't mind it if I were senseless," she said, "but I don't want him to think I have lost my senses again. No, we'll have to give up that idea."