had met the blow that destroyed her youth.

"Dear," said Laura, entering softly as she might have entered a death
chamber. "You will see Aunt Rosa and Aunt Sophy, will you not?"

Angela did not stop in her nervous walk, but when she reached the end of
the long room she made a quick, feverish gesture, raising her hands to
push back her beautiful loosened hair. "I will do anything you wish,
Laura, except see their husbands."

"I've ceased to urge that, Aunt Angela, but your own sisters--"

"Oh, I will see them," returned Angela, as if the words--as if any
speech, in fact--were wrung from the cold reserve which had frozen her
from head to foot.

Laura went up to her and, with the impassioned manner which she had
inherited from her Southern mother, enclosed her in a warm and earnest
embrace. "My dear, my dear," she said, "Uncle Percival tells me that
this is one of your bad days. He says, poor man, that he went out and
got you flowers."

Angela yielded slowly, still without melting from her icy remoteness.
"They were tuberoses," she responded, in a voice which was in itself
effectual comment.

"Tuberoses!" exclaimed Laura aghast, "when you can't even stand the
scent of lilies. No wonder, poor dear, that your head aches."

"Mary put them outside on the window sill," said Angela, in a kind of