balls on top of whose posts are full eight feet above the
sidewalk, the cottage stands high up among a sweet confusion of pale
purple and pink crape myrtles, oleanders white and red, and the
bristling leaves and plumes of white bells of the Spanish bayonet,
all in the shade of lofty magnolias, and one great pecan.

"And this is little Alice," said Doctor Sevier with gentle gravity, as,
on his first visit to the place, he shook hands with Mary at the top of
the veranda stairs, and laid his fingers upon the child's forehead. He
smiled into her uplifted face as her eyes examined his, and stroked the
little crown as she turned her glance silently upon her mother, as if to
inquire if this were a trustworthy person. Mary led the way to chairs
at the veranda's end where the south breeze fanned them, and Alice
retreated to her mother's side until her silent question should be
settled.

It was still May. They spoke the praises of the day whose sun was
just setting. And Mary commended the house, the convenience of its
construction, its salubrity; and also, and especially, the excellence
and goodness of Madame Zenobie. What a complete and satisfactory
arrangement! Was it not? Did not the Doctor think so?

But the Doctor's affirmative responses were unfrequent, and quite
without enthusiasm; and Mary's face, wearing more cheer than was felt
within, betrayed, moreover, the feeling of one who, having done the best
she knew, falls short of commendation.

She was once more in deep black. Her face was pale, and some of its
lines had yielded up a part of their excellence. The outward curves of
the rose had given place to the inward curves of the lily--nay, hardly
all that; for as she had never had the full red queenliness of the one,
neither had she now the severe sanctitude of the other; that soft glow
of inquiry, at once so blithe and so self-contained, so modest and so
courageous, humble, yet free, still played about her saddened eyes and
in her tones. Through the glistening sadness of those eyes smiled
resignation; and although the Doctor plainly read care about them and
about the mouth, it was a care that was forbearing to feed upon itself,
or to take its seat on her brow. The brow was the old one; that is, the
young. The joy of life's morning was gone from it forever; but a
chastened hope was there, and one could see peace hovering just above
it, as though it might in time alight. Such were the things that divided
her austere f