nd me; everything is beyond."

"I will be a good girl. Kiss me, mother. I have been unworthy of you.
When have I ever done anything for you? If you hadn't been my mother,
I dare say we might have helped each other, my friendship and sympathy
have sustained you. As it is, I have behaved as all young animals
behave to their mothers. One thing you may be sure of. The doubt
you feel is needless. You must neither pray nor weep over me. Have I
agitated you?"

"My heart _will_ flutter too much, anyway. Oh, Cassy, Cassy, why
are you such a girl? Why will you be so awfully headstrong?" But she
hugged and kissed me. As I felt the irregular beating of her heart,
a pain smote me. What if she should not live long? Was I not a wicked
fool to lacerate myself with an intangible trouble--the reflex of
selfish emotions?

CHAPTER XXIII.

Veronica's room was like no other place. I was in a new atmosphere
there. A green carpet covered the floor, and the windows had light
blue silk curtains.

"Green and blue together, Veronica?"

"Why not? The sky is blue, and the carpet of the earth is green."

"If you intend to represent the heavens and the earth here, it is very
well."

The paper on the wall was ash-colored, with penciled lines. She had
cloudy days probably. A large-eyed Saint Cecilia, with white roses in
her hair, was pasted on the wall. This frameless picture had a curious
effect. Veronica, in some mysterious way, had contrived to dispose
of the white margin of the picture, and the saint looked out from the
soft ashy tint of the wallpaper. Opposite was an exquisite engraving,
which was framed with dark red velvet. At the end of an avenue of
old trees, gnarled and twisted into each other, a man stood. One hand
grasped the stalk of a ragged vine, which ran over the tree near him;
the other hung helpless by his side, as if the wrist was broken. His
eyes were fixed on some object behind the trees, where nothing was
visible but a portion of the wall of a house. His expression of
concentrated fury--his attitude of waiting--testified that he would
surely accomplish his intention.

"What a picture!"

"The foliage attracted me, and I bought it; but when I unpacked it,
the man seemed to come out for the first time. Will you take it?"

"No; I mean to give my room a somnolent aspect. The man is too
terribly sleepless."

A table stood near the window, methodically covered with labelled
blank-books, a morocco portfolio, a