Rose Galbraith Read Free Page B

such care from the ship’s diagram, she sat down on the side of the bed with her baggage at her feet and stared blankly at the opposite wall. She was in a place at last where she had to stay, at least for a few days. She did not have to nerve herself up for the next act. She could sit right here all night if she wanted to and no one had the right to tell her she couldn’t!
    It was then she felt the tempest of tears coming, the first tear stinging its way out from under her closed lids, and rolling boldly down her white cheek, and then there was an army of them coming with a rush. In an instant she would be down, conquered, giving way before her broken young heart, she who had meant to be so brave! But it was of no use to try further. She was done!
    Then suddenly she was startled by a voice going by her stateroom door. “All ashore that’s going ashore! All ashore that’s going ashore!” Ringing footsteps hurried on, the clarion voice continuing the warning.
    Within her heart came a sudden fierce yearning to see this parting from the shore of her native land, to take one more glimpse of the country that had been the scene of her life thus far, and she sprang up, dashing away those few tears that had ventured out.
    A more sophisticated girl would have gone at once to the tiny mirror and done things to her eyes, which were no doubt red from even those few tears. She would have gotten out a powder puff to remove the suggestion of tears, and a neat little lipstick to hide the lack of a smile on her trembling lips. But Rose Galbraith had never been very conscious of self or appearance. She had worn plain, sometimes faded, often made-over garments, and shoes that had had to be carefully polished not to show their shabbiness. She had carried it all off with a grace, even in the company of better-dressed people, just because she wasn’t expecting to make a good appearance, and wasn’t thinking about it enough to worry.
    And so she went along the corridor from her little cubicle to the deck, remembering well how she and her mother had traced the way again and again with a pencil along the diagram of the ship. She arrived just in time to get a place next to the rail where she could look down to the dock. A great throng were standing there, and many more were hurrying down the gangplank to mingle with them and turn to look back at their friends on the boat.
    Rose looked down on that cheering throng and couldn’t see a face she had ever seen before. Of course. She hadn’t expected to. But it gave her a most desolate feeling. A quick fear came that she might be going to cry again. She shouldn’t have come out here, of course. She might have known it would only make her homesick to see all these happy people going off to have a good time, with so many to see them off. And she hadn’t anybody in the world to say good-bye to her!
    Of course those relatives to whom she was going might be kind enough to welcome her when she got to Scotland, even sorry to see her go if she ever could come back again, but they didn’t know her yet. She had never so much as seen them; it probably would not matter much to them if she never got there.
    Well, she must stop such thoughts if she didn’t want to be disgraced right here among a lot of strangers. She would try and find something amusing to look at down on the wharf. There was a man holding a little child in his arms, and the child was shouting funny little farewells to some playmate who was sailing. She looked at the bright face of the little playmate near the rail beside her and almost envied her joy. A pleasant looking man and woman were with her. She wasn’t going off on a journey alone.
    She turned her attention to a group off at the right. They were saying good-bye, happily.
    â€œNow, Herbert, don’t you and Gladys turn the house upside down while we’re gone off pleasuring,” admonished the pretty white-haired mother, obviously