beneath the sofas.

"I do' know nothin' about it. _I_ 'a'n't took it"; and the
Gnome tosses her head back defiantly. "I seen the lady when
she was a-writin' of her letter, and when she went out ther'
wa'n't nothin' left on the table but a hangkerchuf, and that
wa'n't hern. I do' know nothin' about it, nor I 'a'n't seen
nothin' of it."

O no, my Gnome, you knew nothing of it; you did not take it.
But since no one accused or even suspected you, why could you
not have been less aggressive and more sympathetic in your
assertions? But we will plough no longer in that field. The
ploughshare has struck against a rock and grits, denting its
edge in vain. My veil is gone,--my ample, historic, heroic
veil. There is a woman in Fontdale who breathes air filtered
through--I will not say STOLEN tissue, but certainly through
tissue which was obtained without rendering its owner any fair
equivalent. Does not every breeze that softly stirs its
fluttering folds say to her, "O friend, this veil is not yours,
not yours," and still sighingly, "not yours! Up among the
northern hills, yonder towards the sunset, sits the owner,
sorrowful, weeping, wailing"? I believe I am wading out into
the Sally Waters of Mother Goosery; but, prose or poetry,
somewhere a woman,--and because nobody of taste could
surreptitiously possess herself of my veil, I have no doubt
that she cut it incontinently into two equal parts, and gave
one to her sister, and there are two women,--nay, since
niggardly souls have no sense of grandeur, and will shave down
to microscopic dimensions, it is every way probable that she