oo serious for us to think of such nonsensical
rules," said Gwendolen, contemptuously. "They are insulting as well as
ridiculous."

"You would not mind Isabel sitting with you? She would be reading in a
corner."

"No; she could not: she would bite her nails and stare. It would be too
irritating. Trust my judgment, mamma, I must be alone, Take them all to
church."

Gwendolen had her way, of course; only that Miss Merry and two of the
girls stayed at home, to give the house a look of habitation by sitting
at the dining-room windows.

It was a delicious Sunday morning. The melancholy waning sunshine of
autumn rested on the half-strown grass and came mildly through the
windows in slanting bands of brightness over the old furniture, and the
glass panel that reflected the furniture; over the tapestried chairs
with their faded flower-wreaths, the dark enigmatic pictures, the
superannuated organ at which Gwendolen had pleased herself with acting
Saint Cecelia on her first joyous arrival, the crowd of pallid, dusty
knicknacks seen through the open doors of the antechamber where she had
achieved the wearing of her Greek dress as Hermione. This last memory
was just now very busy in her; for had not Klesmer then been struck
with admiration of her pose and expression? Whatever he had said,
whatever she imagined him to have thought, was at this moment pointed
with keenest interest for her: perhaps she had never before in her life
felt so inwardly dependent, so consciously in need of another person's
opinion. There was a new fluttering of spirit within her, a new element
of deliberation in her self-estimate which had hitherto been a blissful
gift of intuition. Still it was the recurrent burden of her inward
soliloquy that Klesmer had seen but little of her, and any unfavorable
conclusion of his must have too narrow a foundation. She really felt
clever enough for anything.

To fill up the time she collected her volumes and pieces of music, and
laying them on the top of the piano, set herself to classify them. Then
catching the reflection of her movements in the glass panel, she was
diverted to the contemplation of the image there and walked toward it.
Dressed in black, without a single ornament, and with the warm
whiteness of her skin set off between her light-brown coronet of hair
and her square-cut bodice, she might have tempted an artist to try
again the Roman trick of a statue in black, white, and tawny marble.
Seeing her im