light
of her complexion went out and left her colourless. She did not offer
to speak.

"Why don't you say something?" cried her mother. "Do you want to kill
me, Irene?"

"Why should I want to hurt you, mamma?" the girl replied steadily, but
in an alien voice. "There's nothing to say. I want to see Pen a
minute."

She turned and left the room. As she mounted the stairs that led to
her own and her sister's rooms on the floor above, her mother
helplessly followed. Irene went first to her own room at the front of
the house, and then came out leaving the door open and the gas flaring
behind her. The mother could see that she had tumbled many things out
of the drawers of her bureau upon the marble top.

She passed her mother, where she stood in the entry. "You can come
too, if you want to, mamma," she said.

She opened Penelope's door without knocking, and went in. Penelope sat
at the window, as in the morning. Irene did not go to her; but she
went and laid a gold hair-pin on her bureau, and said, without looking
at her, "There's a pin that I got to-day, because it was like his
sister's. It won't become a dark person so well, but you can have it."

She stuck a scrap of paper in the side of Penelope's mirror. "There's
that account of Mr. Stanton's ranch. You'll want to read it, I
presume."

She laid a withered boutonniere on the bureau beside the pin. "There's
his button-hole bouquet. He left it by his plate, and I stole it."

She had a pine-shaving fantastically tied up with a knot of ribbon, in
her hand. She held it a moment; then, looking deliberately at
Penelope, she went up to her, and dropped it in her lap without a word.
She turned, and, advancing a few steps, tottered and seemed about to
fall.

Her mother sprang forward with an imploring cry, "O 'Rene, 'Rene,
'Rene!"

Irene recovered herself before her mother could reach her. "Don't
touch me," she said icily. "Mamma, I'm going to put on my things. I
want papa to walk with me. I'm choking here."

"I--I can't let you go out, Irene, child," began her mother.

"You've got to," replied the girl. "Tell papa ta hurry his supper."

"O poor soul! He doesn't want any supper. HE knows it too."

"I don't want to talk about that. Tell him to get ready."

She left them once more.

Mrs. Lapham turned a hapless glance upon Penelope.

"Go and tell him, mother," said the girl. "I would, if I could. If
she can walk, let her. It's the only t