A ROSE OF YESTERDAY
BY
F. MARION CRAWFORD
Author of "Saracenesca," "Dr. Claudius," "Katharine
Lauderdale," "The Ralstons," etc., etc.
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1897
All rights reserved
COPYRIGHT, 1897,
BY F. MARION CRAWFORD.
Set up and electrotyped May, 1897. Reprinted August,
October, 1897.
Eleventh Thousand
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co. -- Berwick & Smith
Norwood, Mass. U.S.A.
A ROSE OF YESTERDAY
CHAPTER I
"I wonder what he meant by it," saidSylvia, turning again in her chair, so that thesummer light, softened and tinted by thedrawn blinds, might fall upon the etching sheheld.
"My dear," answered Colonel Wimpole, stretchingout his still graceful legs, leaning back in hischair, and slowly joining his nervous buthandsome hands, "nobody knows."
He did not move again for some time, and hisward continued to scrutinize Dürer's Knight. Itwas the one known as 'The Knight, Death, andthe Devil,' and she had just received it from herguardian as a birthday present.
"But people must have thought a great dealabout it," said Sylvia, at last. "There must bestories about what it means. Do tell me. I'msure you know."
She laid the unframed print upon her knees,still holding it by the edges, lest the fitful breezethat came in through the blinds should blow itto the floor. At the same time she raised hereyes till they met the colonel's.
Her earnest young face expressed somethinglike veneration as she gazed at him, and perhapshe thought that it was undeserved, for he soonlooked away, with a faint sigh. She sighed, too,but more audibly, as though she were not ashamedof it. Possibly she knew that he could not guesswhat the sigh meant, and the knowledge addeda little