lf"--and her voice began to quiver with
indignation--"compelled us to beg him not to come. It is scarcely
credible--and I should do better not to pour fresh oil on my wrath--but
he bade us 'rejoice'; three, four, five times he repeated the cruel
words. And he wrote in a pompous strain of the bliss and rapture which
awaited our lost child--and this to a mother whose heart had been utterly
broken but a few hours before by a fearful stroke of Fate! He would meet
the bereaved, grieving, lonely mourner with a smile on his lips! Rejoice!
This climax of cruelty or aberration has parted us forever. Why, our
black gardener, whose god is a tree-stump that bears only the faintest
likeness to humanity, melted into tears at the news; and Zeno, our
brother, the uncle of that broken dower, could be glad and bid us
rejoice! My husband thinks that hatred and the long-standing feud
prompted his pen. For my part, I believe it was only this Christian
frenzy which made him suggest that I should sink lower than the brutes,
who defend their young with their lives. Seleukus has long since forgiven
him for his conduct in withdrawing his share of the capital from the
business when he became a Christian, to squander it on the baser sort;
but this 'Rejoice' neither he nor I can forgive, though things which
pierce me to the heart often slide off him like water off grease."

Her black hair had come down as she delivered this vehement speech, and,
when she ceased, her flushed cheeks and the fiery glow of her eyes gave
the majestic woman in her dark robes an aspect which terrified Melissa.

She, too, thought this "Rejoice," under such circumstances, unseemly and
insulting; but she kept her opinion to herself, partly out of modesty and
partly because she did not wish to encourage the estrangement between
this unhappy lady and the niece whose mere presence would have been so
great a comfort to her.

When Johanna returned to lead her to a bedroom, she gave a sigh of
relief; but the lady expressed a wish to keep Melissa near her, and in a
low voice desired the waiting-woman to prepare a bed for her in the
adjoining room, by the side of Korinna's, which was never to be
disturbed. Then, still greatly excited, she invited Melissa into her
daughter's pretty room.

There she showed her everything that Korinna had especially cared for.
Her bird hung in the same place; her lap-dog was sleeping in a basket, on
the cushion which Berenike had embroidered for her