Free Rose Galbraith by Grace Livingston Hill

word in her ears.
    â€œI’m so glad we have found each other!”
    â€œAnd oh, so am I!” responded Rose, with a long drawn breath of relief.
    â€œAnd I hope you will come and sit with me a little while this evening,” said her new friend. “We have a great deal more to talk about.”
    So Rose went to her own table that night with a pleasant thought for the evening that was to follow the meal and with a good excuse to offer if Harry Coster tried to monopolize her again.
    But how they did stare, especially Mrs. Adams, when the gracious lady appeared behind Rose’s chair before she had finished dinner and spoke a few low words in her ear, then with a smile went slowly on.
    â€œWell,” said Mrs. Adams in a tone that could be easily heard over the table, “you certainly are flying high! I didn’t know you knew her.”
    â€œYes,” said Rose sweetly, “she’s an old friend of my aunt’s.”
    â€œOh,
really
?” said Mrs. Adams. “On which side? Father or mother?”
    â€œOh, she’s a friend of the whole family, you know.”
    â€œWell, I thought you were sort of superior,” said Lily Blake. “Now I see you had some reason.”
    â€œSuperior?” said Rose, puzzled. “What reason could I have to be superior?”
    â€œWhy, because it isn’t everybody who knows Lady Campbell intimately, of course. I heard somebody say today that Lady Campbell was so high up in society she was almost royalty.”
    Rose tried not to show her surprise. So her friend was
Lady
Campbell! Not just plain “Mrs.” “But why should
I
be superior? Knowing her doesn’t make
me
royalty, surely!” She laughed.
    â€œNow,” said Harry Coster with his scornful grin, “don’t pretend you don’t know why. You can’t put that over on us. I say, how about giving us an introduction? I wouldn’t mind knowing some near-royalties myself. It might come in handy sometime.”
    They did a good deal of kidding and laughing, but Rose could see that they looked at her with a trifle more respect than they had done, and when Harry Coster gave his evening invitation to her to go and dance a while, he only bowed low when she said, “No thank you,” and stared after her thoughtfully, instead of arguing with her about it.
    So the days grew to be pleasant ones, with such a friend as Lady Campbell to sit beside her occasionally, and sometimes to invite her up to have dinner with her. She was a friend who could advise her and was wise about things of the journey that she needed to know.
    It was pleasant, too, to have Lady Campbell invite her for a visit in her own home. Rose began to look forward to her stay in Scotland with a possibility of pleasure. For her mother’s sake if not for her own, she wanted to enjoy it and see the beautiful things and places and people her mother had loved. So the approaching end of her voyage did not cause her as much anxiety as it had before she knew Lady Campbell.
    One night, when Rose crept into bed and lay there listening to the beating of the waves and thinking about her pilgrimage, she reflected that Lady Campbell was another person like Gordon McCarroll, a person with a heart of gold and a life full of love and helpfulness. There were all kinds of people in the world. Some were one kind and some another, and you had to meet all kinds and adjust yourself to each, but there was only one kind that you could take to your heart truly, and admire, and fellowship with. Was it perhaps because they loved the Lord? She would have to think about that. She would have to know people better before she found out how much a knowledge of God helped to make them the right kind.
    Then she fell asleep with a smile on her lips.

Chapter 5
    B ack in New York Gordon McCarroll had not forgotten the girl whom he had helped to speed on her way, who was now out upon the wide ocean. He thought of her