threads of fire, light itself, and make a fiery start in the air,
as it pointed somewhere. Having pointed somewhere, it went out.

'You know she was a Bride,' said the old man.

'I know they still send up Bride-cake,' Mr. Goodchild faltered.
'This is a very oppressive air.'

'She was a Bride,' said the old man. 'She was a fair, flaxen-
haired, large-eyed girl, who had no character, no purpose. A weak,
credulous, incapable, helpless nothing. Not like her mother. No,
no. It was her father whose character she reflected.

'Her mother had taken care to secure everything to herself, for her
own life, when the father of this girl (a child at that time) died-
-of sheer helplessness; no other disorder--and then He renewed the
acquaintance that had once subsisted between the mother and Him.
He had been put aside for the flaxen-haired, large-eyed man (or
nonentity) with Money. He could overlook that for Money. He
wanted compensation in Money.

'So, he returned to the side of that woman the mother, made love to
her again, danced attendance on her, and submitted himself to her
whims. She wreaked upon him every whim she had, or could invent.
He bore it. And the more he bore, the more he wanted compensation
in Money, and the more he was resolved to have it.

'But, lo! Before he got it, she cheated him. In one of her
imperious states, she froze, and never thawed again. She put her
hands to her head one night, uttered a cry, stiffened, lay in that