ome more
precious, and everything had become more precious to her--in short it
was a feeling of youth after all.

*****

On an evening of one of these days Mrs. Fonss sat alone at home,
Elinor had gone to bed early, and Tage had gone to the theater with the
Kastagers. She had been sitting in the dull hotel-room and had dreamed
in the half light of a couple of candles. At length her dreams had come
to a stop after their incessant coming and going; she had grown tired,
but with that mild and smiling weariness which wraps itself round us,
when happy thoughts are falling asleep in our mind.

She could not go on sitting here, staring in front of her, the whole
evening long without so much as a book. It was still over an hour before
the theater let out. So she began to walk up and down the room, stood in
front of the mirror, and arranged her hair.

She would go down into the reading-room, and look over the illustrated
papers. At this time of the evening it was always empty there.

She threw a large black lace shawl over her head and went down.

The room was empty.

The small room, overfull with furniture, was brilliantly illuminated
by half a dozen large gas-flames; it was hot and the air was almost
painfully dry.

She drew the shawl down around the shoulders.

The white papers there on the table, the portfolios with their large
gilt letters, the empty plush chairs, the regular squares of the carpet
and the even folds of the rep curtains--all this looked dull under the
strong light.

She was still dreaming, and dreaming she stood, and listened to the
long-drawn singing of the gas-flames.

The heat was such as almost to make one dizzy.

To support herself she slowly reached out for a large, heavy bronze
vase which stood on a bracket fixed in the wall, and grasped the
flower-decorated edge.

It was comfortable to stand thus, and the bronze was gratefully cool to
the touch of her hand. But as she stood thus, there came another feeling
also. She began to feel a contentment in her limbs, in her body, because
of the plastically beautiful position which she had assumed. She was
conscious of how becoming it was to her, of the beauty which was hers
at the moment, and even of the physical sensation of harmony. All
this gathered in a feeling of triumph, and streamed through her like a
strange festive exultation.

She felt herself so strong at this hour, and life lay before her like
a great, radiant day; no longer like