Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER HI. " Let us strike hands as hearty friends, No more, no less: and friendship's good Only don't keep in view ulterior ends, And points not understood, In open treaty. Rise above Quibbles and shuffling off and on. Here's friendship for you, if you like; but love — Ko, thank you, John." Chbistina Eossetti. EVERYBODY in Northbrooke soon knew thai Serena Lennox and Rosamond Wellesley were going to Europe. Miss Lennox was amiable enough to announce her intention at once, being aware that nothing was so irritating to Northbrooke as a secret. Northbrooke did not like to be surprised. It claimed as its inalienable right a fair amount of leisure in which to discuss everybody's plans before they were put in execution. Out of regard, then, for the idiosyncrasies of her neighbors, Miss Lennox made no secret of her intentions. Why, indeed, should she be reticent in this respect? In the old daya there had been nothing surprising in a "Welleslay or a Lennox passing a winter in Paris or Rome, but of late they had all grown rust)-. That comes of being an old woman and living alone, thought aunt Serena, wheeling herself on to this step which, look at it aaihc would, always assumed gigantic proportions. There was positively no reason why Rosamond should vegetate in Northbrookc. If a dull old woman like herself enjoyed vegetating, why, that was pure indolence. Rosamond should be happy, God bless her! and with an inward shudder .Miss Lennox wrote to engage their passage, and began active preparations for departure. There were several old pensioners to be provided for, various business arrangements to make; and John, wo regarded the matter with mournful and undisguised disapproval, reported each day some newly discovered necessity of repairs on the house, all of which ...