hat I had not bethought myself of
winning your heart, Mr. Coverdale, instead of Hollingsworth's. I think
I should have succeeded, and many women would have deemed you the
worthier conquest of the two. You are certainly much the handsomest
man. But there is a fate in these things. And beauty, in a man, has
been of little account with me since my earliest girlhood, when, for
once, it turned my head. Now, farewell!"

"Zenobia, whither are you going?" I asked.

"No matter where," said she. "But I am weary of this place, and sick
to death of playing at philanthropy and progress. Of all varieties of
mock-life, we have surely blundered into the very emptiest mockery in
our effort to establish the one true system. I have done with it; and
Blithedale must find another woman to superintend the laundry, and you,
Mr. Coverdale, another nurse to make your gruel, the next time you fall
ill. It was, indeed, a foolish dream! Yet it gave us some pleasant
summer days, and bright hopes, while they lasted. It can do no more;
nor will it avail us to shed tears over a broken bubble. Here is my
hand! Adieu!"

She gave me her hand with the same free, whole-souled gesture as on the
first afternoon of our acquaintance, and, being greatly moved, I
bethought me of no better method of expressing my deep sympathy than to
carry it to my lips. In so doing, I perceived that this white hand--so
hospitably warm when I first touched it, five months since--was now
cold as a veritable piece of snow.

"How very cold!" I exclaimed, holding it between both my own, with the
vain idea of warming it. "What can be the reason? It is really
deathlike!"

"The extremities die first, they say," answered Zenobia, laughing. "And
so you kiss this poor, despised, rejected hand! Well, my dear friend,
I thank you. You have reserved your homage for the fallen. Lip of man
will never touch my hand again. I intend to become a Catholic, for the
sake of going into a nunnery. When you next hear of Zenobia, her face
will be behind the black veil; so look your last at it now,--for all is
over. Once more, farewell!"

She withdrew her hand, yet left a lingering pressure, which I felt long
afterwards. So intimately connected as I had been with perhaps the
only man in whom she was ever truly interested, Zenobia looked on me as
the representative of all the past, and was conscious that, in bidding
me adieu, she likewise took final leave of Hollingsworth, and