had left on the household that they should frame him in velvet and keep
him staring at his own bed for ever!) She all but saw spirits--and
shivered at the procession of life. Outside in the street she heard a
cry, and her name called under the window. How like the cry that
afternoon a week ago which had sent her to Verdun! Standing in the
shadow of the curtain she peered cautiously out.

At sight of her, a voice cried up from the street: "There is a fancy
dress dance next Tuesday night! I'm warning every one; it's so hard to
get stuffs." The voice passed on to the house where Stewart lived.

("How nice of her!") This was a good day. ("What shall I wear at the
dance?") There, about the face of the clock, windless and steady, hung
the hours. Not yet time to start, not yet.

Through the lace of the curtain and the now closed window, the shadows
hurried by upon the pavement, heads bobbed below upon the street.

Oh Dark, and Pale, and Plain, walking soberly in hat and coat, what sign
in these faces of the silver webbery within the brain, of the flashing
fancies and merry plans, like birds gone mad in a cage! The tram, as
antique as a sedan chair, clanked across the bridge over the river, and
changing its note as it reached firmer land, roared and bumbled like a
huge bee into the little street. Stopping below her window it was
assailed by little creatures who threw themselves as greedily within as
if they were setting out upon a wild adventure.

"All going to meet somebody," said Fanny, whose mind, drowned in her
happiness, took the narrowest view of life. But for all their push and
hurry the little creatures in the glass cage were forced to unfold their