t's the habit with the girls up here," said Anthony; "that's
what fine bonnets mean."

Rhoda dropped into a bitter depth of brooding. The savage nature of her
virgin pride was such that it gave her great suffering even to
suppose that a strange gentleman would dare to address her sister. She
half-fashioned the words on her lips that she had dreamed of a false
Zion, and was being righteously punished. By-and-by the landlady's
daughter returned home alone, saying, with a dreadful laugh, that Dahlia
had sent her for her Bible; but she would give no explanation of the
singular mission which had been entrusted to her, and she showed no
willingness to attempt to fulfil it, merely repeating, "Her Bible!" with
a vulgar exhibition of simulated scorn that caused Rhoda to shrink from
her, though she would gladly have poured out a multitude of questions in
the ear of one who had last been with her beloved. After a while, Mrs.
Wicklow looked at the clock, and instantly became overclouded with an
extreme gravity.

"Eleven! and she sent Mary Ann home for her Bible. This looks bad. I
call it hypocritical, the idea of mentioning the Bible. Now, if she had
said to Mary Ann, go and fetch any other book but a Bible!"

"It was mother's Bible," interposed Rhoda.

Mrs. Wicklow replied: "And I wish all young women to be as innocent as
you, my dear. You'll get you to bed. You're a dear, mild, sweet, good
young woman. I'm never deceived in character."

Vaunting her penetration, she accompanied Rhoda to Dahlia's chamber,
bidding her sleep speedily, or that when her sister came they would be
talking till the cock crowed hoarse.

"There's a poultry-yard close to us?" said Rhoda; feeling less at home
when she heard that there was not.

The night was quiet and clear. She leaned her head out of the window,
and heard the mellow Sunday evening roar of the city as of a sea at ebb.
And Dahlia was out on the sea. Rhoda thought of it as she looked at the
row of lamps, and listened to the noise remote, until the sight of
stars was pleasant as the faces of friends. "People are kind here,"
she reflected, for her short experience of the landlady was good, and a
young gentleman who had hailed a cab for her at the station, had a nice
voice. He was fair. "I am dark," came a spontaneous reflection. She
undressed, and half dozing over her beating heart in bed, heard the
street door open, and leaped to think that her sister approached,
jumping up in her bed t