ers came along the hall
with a candle, and I waited to ask him if I could do anything for his
comfort.

"My dear," he said with apprehension, "your sister is a genius, I
think."

"In music--yes."

"What a deplorable thing for a woman!"

"A woman of genius is but a heavenly lunatic, or an anomaly sphered
between the sexes; do you agree?"

He laughed, and pushed his spectacles up on his forehead.

"My dear, I am astonished that Ben's choice fell as it did--"

"Good-night, sir," I said so loudly that he almost dropped his candle,
and I retired to my room, taking a chair by the fire, with a sigh of
relief. After a while Ben and Veronica came up.

"It is a cold night," I remarked.

"I am in an enchanted palace," said Ben, "where there is no weather."

"Cassy, will you take these pins out of my hair?" asked Verry, seating
herself in an easy-chair. "Ben, we will excuse you."

"How good of you." He strode across the passage, went into her room,
and shut the door.

"There, Verry, I have unbound your hair."

"But I want to talk."

I took her hand, and led her out. She stood before her door for a
moment silently, and then gave a little knock. No answer came. She
knocked again; the same silence as before. At last she was obliged to
open it herself, and enter without any bidding.

"Which will rule?" I thought, as I slipped down the back stairs, and
listened at the kitchen door. I heard nothing. Finding an old cloak
in the entry, I wrapped myself in it and left the house. The moon was
out-riding black, scudding clouds, and the wind moaned round the sea,
which looked like a vast, wrinkled serpent in the moonlight.

I walked to Gloster Point, and rested under the lee of the lighthouse,
but could not, when I made the attempt, see to read the inscription
inside my watch, by the light of the lantern. I must have fallen
asleep from fatigue, still holding it in my hand; for when I started
homeward, there was a pale reflection of light in the east, and the
sea was creeping quietly toward it with a murmuring morning song.

CHAPTER XL.

I looked across the bay from my window. "The snow is making 'Pawshee's
Land' white again, and I remain this year the same. No change, no
growth or development! The fulfillment of duty avails me nothing; and
self-discipline has passed the necessary point."

I struck the sash with my closed hand, for I would now give my life a
new direction, and it was fettered. But I would be