lovely." She closed the wicket, and sat down by the table. My
dullness vanished with her. There might be something to interest me
beneath the calm surface of our family life after all.

"Veronica, do you think mother is changed? I think so."

"She is always the same to me. But I have had fears respecting her
health."

Outside the door I met Temperance, with a clothes-basket.

"Oh ho!" she said, "you are going the rounds. Verry's room beats all
possessed, don't it? It is cleaned spick and span every three months.
She calls it inaugurating the seasons. She is as queer as Dick's
hatband. Have you any fine things to do up?"

Her question put me in mind of my trunks, and I hastened to them, with
the determination of putting my room to rights. The call to dinner
interrupted me before I had begun, and the call to supper came before
anything in the way of improvement had been accomplished. My mind
was chaotic by bed-time. The picture of Veronica, reading by her wax
candle, or looking through the wicket, collected and happy in her
orderly perfection, came into my mind, and with it an admiration which
never ceased, though I had no sympathy with her. We seemed as far
apart as when we were children.

I was eager for employment, promising to perform many tasks, but the
attempt killed my purpose and interest. My will was nerveless, when I
contemplated Time, which stretched before me--a vague, limitless sea;
and I only kept Endeavor in view, near enough to be tormented.

One day father asked me to go to Milford, and I then asked him for
money to spend for the adornment of my room.

"Be prudent," he replied. "I am not so rich as people think me.
Although the _Locke Morgeson_ was insured, she was a loss. But you
need not speak of this to your mother. I never worry her with my
business cares. As for Veronica, she has not the least idea of the
value of money, or care for what it represents."

When we went into the shops, I found him disposed to be more
extravagant than I was. I bought a blue and white carpet; a piece
of blue and white flowered chintz; two stuffed chairs, covered with
hair-cloth (father remonstrated against these), and a long mirror to
go between the windows, astonishing him with my vanity. What I wanted
besides I could construct myself, with the help of the cabinet maker
in Surrey.

In one of the shops I heard a familiar voice, which gave me a thrill
of anger. I turned and saw Charlotte Alden, of Barmouth, th