ld
be because he had found a lot pleasanter to himself.

Mr. Filmore's house lay not more than half a mile beyond our own gates,
and whenever I knew my brother was gone in another direction, I went
there for the chance of finding Bertha at home. Later on in the day I
walked thither. By a rare accident she was alone, and we walked out in
the grounds together, for she seldom went on foot beyond the trimly-swept
gravel-walks. I remember what a beautiful sylph she looked to me as the
low November sun shone on her blond hair, and she tripped along teasing
me with her usual light banter, to which I listened half fondly, half
moodily; it was all the sign Bertha's mysterious inner self ever made to
me. To-day perhaps, the moodiness predominated, for I had not yet shaken
off the access of jealous hate which my brother had raised in me by his
parting patronage. Suddenly I interrupted and startled her by saying,
almost fiercely, "Bertha, how can you love Alfred?"

She looked at me with surprise for a moment, but soon her light smile
came again, and she answered sarcastically, "Why do you suppose I love
him?"

"How can you ask that, Bertha?"

"What! your wisdom thinks I must love the man I'm going to marry? The
most unpleasant thing in the world. I should quarrel with him; I should
be jealous of him; our _menage_ would be conducted in a very ill-bred
manner. A little quiet contempt contributes greatly to the elegance of
life."

"Bertha, that is not your real feeling. Why do you delight in trying to
deceive me by inventing such cynical speeches?"

"I need never take the trouble of invention in order to deceive you, my
small Tasso"--(that was the mocking name she usually gave me). "The
easiest way to deceive a poet is to tell him the truth."

She was testing the validity of her epigram in a daring way, and for a
moment the shadow of my vision--the Bertha whose soul was no secret to
me--passed between me and the radiant girl, the playful sylph whose
feelings were a fascinating mystery. I suppose I must have shuddered, or
betrayed in some other way my momentary chill of horror.

"Tasso!" she said, seizing my wrist, and peeping round into my face, "are
you really beginning to discern what a heartless girl I am? Why, you are
not half the poet I thought you were; you are actually capable of
believing the truth about me."

The shadow passed from between us, and was no longer the object nearest
to me. The girl whose