etched forth their hands for the crown of victory.

At the last meeting of the Preposterous Society, Ernest had repeated a
poem of his favourite Emerson, called _Days_, and the poem, which
was familiar to Hadria, sounded in her memory, as the pony trotted merrily
along the well-known homeward way.

"Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb, like barefoot Dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and faggots in their hands.
To each they offer gifts after his will,
Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all.
I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,
Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
Turned and departed silent. I, too late,
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn."

In spite of Hadria's memorable lecture of a year ago, it was still the
orthodox creed of the Society, that Circumstance is the handmaid of the
Will; that one can demand of one's days "bread, kingdoms, stars, or
sky," and that the Days will obediently produce the objects desired. If
one has but the spirit that can soar high enough to really be resolved
upon stars, or the ambition sufficiently vaulting to be determined on
kingdoms, then--so ran the dogma--stars and kingdoms would be
forthcoming, though obstacles were never so determined. No member except
Hadria had ever dreamt of insinuating that one might have a very
pronounced taste for stars and kingdoms--nay, a taste so dominant that
life would be worthless unless they were achieved--yet might be forced,
by the might of events, to forego them. Hadria's own heresy had been of
the head rather than of the heart. But to-day, feeling began to share
the scepticism of the intellect.

What if one's stars and kingdoms lay on the further side of a crime or a
cruelty?

What then was left but to gather up one's herbs and apples, and bear, as
best one might, the scorn of the unjust Days?

Hadria cast about in her mind for a method of utilizing to the best
advantage possible, the means at her disposal: to force circumstance to
yield a harvest to her will. To be the family consolation meant no light
task, for Mrs. Fullerton was exacting by nature: she had given much, and
she expected much in return. Her logic was somewhat faulty, but that
could not be gracefully pointed out to her by her daughter. Having
allow