centre-table, whose sterile emptiness was relieved only by a shaded lamp
and a large black and gilt open volume. A single picture on the
opposite wall--the portrait of an elderly gentleman stiffened over a
corresponding volume, which he held in invincible mortmain in his rigid
hand, and apparently defied posterity to take from him--seemed to offer
a not uncongenial companionship. Yet the greenish light of the shade
fell upon a young and pretty face, despite the color it extracted from
it, and the hand that supported her low white forehead over which
her full hair was simply parted, like a brown curtain, was slim and
gentle-womanly. In spite of her plain lustreless silk dress, in spite of
the formal frame of sombre heavy horsehair and mahogany furniture that
seemed to set her off, she diffused an atmosphere of cleanly grace and
prim refinement through the apartment. The priestess of this ascetic
temple, the femininity of her closely covered arms, her pink ears, and
a little serviceable morocco house-shoe that was visible lower down,
resting on the carved lion's paw that upheld the centre-table, appeared
to be only the more accented. And the precisely rounded but softly
heaving bosom, that was pressed upon the edges of the open book of
sermons before her, seemed to assert itself triumphantly over the rigors
of the volume.

At least so her husband and lover thought, as he moved tenderly
towards her. She met his first kiss on her forehead; the second, a
supererogatory one, based on some supposed inefficiency in the first,
fell upon a shining band of her hair, beside her neck. She reached up
her slim hands, caught his wrists firmly, and, slightly putting him
aside, said:

"There, Edward?"