to start a coiffeur in business, and woolly lambs
enough for a dozen pastoral poems or as many bucolic butchers. But the
piano was piled high with Beethoven's sonatas and Chopin's delicious
dream-music, while a deluge of French novels had evidently surged over
that palace of the Leatherstonepaughs.

When the family took possession of their share of the palazzo a corner
of this studio-salon was dedicated to a peculiar member of their family.
From that corner she seldom moved save as she swept away in some such
elegant costume as the others wore only upon gala-occasions, or in some
picturesque or wildly-fantastic garb that would have lodged her in a
policeman's care had she ever been suffered to escape thus from the
palace. All day long, day after day, she tarried in her corner mute and
motionless, eying all comers and goers with a haughty stare. Sometimes
she leaned there with rigid finger pressed upon her lip, like a statue
of Silence; sometimes her hands were pressed pathetically to her breast,
like a Mater Dolorosa; sometimes both arms hung lax and limp by her
side, like those of a heart-broken creature; and sometimes she wildly
clutched empty air, like a Leatherstonepaugh enthusiastically inebriated
or gone stark, staring, raving mad!

[Illustration: ANTIGNONE.]

Yet never, never, never was Silentia Leatherstonepaugh known to break
that dreadful silence, even though honored guests spoke to her kindly,
and although young Cain Leatherstonepaugh repeatedly reviled her as had
she been Abel's wife. One day came an old Spanish monk of whom Leah and
Rachel would learn the language of Castile. Silentia gloomed in her
dusky corner unseen of the monk, who was left with her an instant alone.
A few moments before, moved perhaps by a dawning comprehension of the
unspeakable pathos of her fate, young Cain had given her a dagger. When,
two minutes after the monk's arrival, Leah and Rachel entered the room,
a black sighing mass cowered in a corner of the sofa, while Silentia
rose spectre-like in the dimness, the dagger pointed toward her heart.

[Illustration: SILENTIA LEATHERSTONEPAUGH.]

"Madonna mia!" giggled the monk hysterically when his petticoats were
pulled decorously about him and he was set on his feet again, "I thought
I should be arrested for murder--_poverino mio_!"

Another day came one of the Beelzebub girls--Lady Diavoletta--who wished
to coax some of the Leatherstonepaughs to paint her a series of fans
with t