husband and her kindly-minded mother-in-law, and then there was a phantom
she could not determine, and behind it something into which she could not
see. Was it a distant country? Was it a scene of revelry? Impossible to
say, for whenever she attempted to find definite shapes in the glowing
colours they vanished in a blurred confusion.

But amid these fleeting visions there was one shape that particularly
interested her, and she pursued it tenaciously, until in a desperate effort
to define its features she awoke with a start and spoke more crossly than
she intended to the little girls, who had pulled aside the curtain and were
intently examining the huge theatrical poster that adorned the corner of
the lane. But as she scolded she could not help smiling; for she saw how
her dream had been made out of the red and blue dresses of the picture.

The arrival of each new company in the town was announced pictorially on
this corner wall, and, in the course of the year, many of the vicissitudes
to which human life is liable received illustration upon it. Wrecks at sea,
robberies on the highways, prisoners perishing in dungeons, green lanes and
lovers, babies, glowing hearths, and heroic young husbands. The opera
companies exhibited the less serious sides of life--strangely dressed
people and gallants kissing their hands to ladies standing on balconies.

The little girls examined these pictures and commented on them; and on
Saturdays it was a matter of the keenest speculation what the following
week would bring them. Lizzie preferred exciting scenes of murder and
arson, while Annie was moved more by leavetakings and declarations of
unalterable affection. These differences of taste often gave rise to little
bickerings, and last week there had been much prophesying as to whether the
tragic or the sentimental element would prove next week's attraction.
Lizzie had voted for robbers and mountains, Annie for lovers and a nice