other women rushed to her to console her,--the mother with reason, and
Jervis with poetry. "It's the angels whispering, like the song says." Oh,
the pang that was in the heart of the other whom they could not hear! She
stood wondering how it could be,--wondering with an amazement beyond
words, how all that was in her heart, the love and the pain, and the
sweetness and bitterness, could all be hidden,--all hidden by that air in
which the women stood so clear! She held out her hands, she spoke to
them, telling who she was, but no one paid any attention; only the little
dog Fido, who had been basking by the fire, sprang up, looked at her, and
retreating slowly backwards till he reached the wall, sat down there and
looked at her again, with now and then a little bark of inquiry. The dog
saw her. This gave her a curious pang of humiliation, yet pleasure. She
went away out of that little centre of human life in a great excitement
and thrill of her whole being. The child had seen her, and the dog; but,
oh heavens! how was she to work out her purpose by such auxiliaries as
these?

She went up to her old bedchamber with unshed tears heavy about her eyes,
and a pathetic smile quivering on her mouth. It touched her beyond
measure that the child should have that confidence in her. "Then God is
still with me," she said to herself. Her room, which had been so warm and
bright, lay desolate in the stillness of the night; but she wanted no
light, for the darkness was no darkness to her. She looked round her for
a little, wondering to think how far away from her now was this scene of
her old life, but feeling no pain in the sight of it,--only a kind
indulgence for the foolish simplicity which had taken so much pride in
all these infantile elements of living. She went to the little Italian
cabinet which stood against the wall, feeling now at least that she could
do as she would,--that here there was no blank of human unconsciousness
to stand in her way. But she was met by something that baffled and vexed