“I don’t want any time! I know who I love best, who I’m happiest with, and I choose uncle. Will he have me?” cried Rose, in a tone that produced a sympathetic thrill among the hearers, it was so full of tender confidence and love.

If she really had any doubt, the look in Dr. Alec’s face banished it without a word, as he opened wide his arms, and she ran into them, feeling that home was there.

No one spoke for a minute, but there were signs of emotion among the aunts, which warned the boys to bestir themselves before the water-works began to play. So they took hands and began to prance about uncle and niece, singing, with sudden inspiration, the nursery rhyme—

“Ring around a Rosy!”

Of course that put an end to all sentiment, and Rose emerged laughing from Dr. Alec’s bosom, with the mark of a waistcoat button nicely imprinted on her left cheek. He saw it, and said with a merry kiss that half effaced it, “This is my ewe lamb, and I have set my mark on her, so no one can steal her away.”

That tickled the boys, and they set up a shout of

“Uncle had a little lamb!”

But Rose hushed the noise by slipping into the circle, and making them dance prettily—like lads and lasses round a May-pole; while Phebe, coming in with fresh water for the flowers, began to twitter, chirp, and coo, as if all the birds of the air had come to join in the spring revel of the eight cousins.

For Sequel, see “The Rose in Bloom.”