mily and relations had worn
themselves into their several graves, taking care of him. But Eleonora
Harrigan knew nothing of the history of the room while she occupied it.
So, no ghost disturbed her restless slumberless nights, consumed in
watching and listening.

She was not particularly distressed because she knew that it would not be
possible for her to sing again until the following winter in New York. She
had sobbed too much, with her face buried in the pillow. Had these sobs
been born of weakness, all might have been well; but rage had mothered
them, and thus her voice was in a very bad way. This morning she was
noticeably hoarse, and there was a break in the arietta. No, she did not
fret over this side of the calamity. The sting of it all lay in the fact
that she had been outraged in the matter of personal liberty, with no act
of reprisal to ease her immediate longing to be avenged.

Nora, as she stood in the full morning sunlight, was like to gladden the
eyes of all mankind. She was beautiful, and all adjectives applicable
would but serve to confuse rather than to embellish her physical
excellence. She was as beautiful as a garden rose is, needing no defense,
no ramparts of cloying phrases. The day of poets is gone, otherwise she
would have been sung in cantos. She was tall, shapely, deep-bosomed,
fine-skinned. Critics, in praising her charms, delved into mythology and
folk-lore for comparisons, until there wasn't a goddess left on Olympus or
on Northland's icy capes; and when these images became a little shop-worn,
referred to certain masterpieces of the old fellows who had left nothing
more to be said in oils. Nora enjoyed it all.

She had not been happy in the selection of her stage name; but she had
chosen Eleonora da Toscana because she believed there was good luck in it.
Once, long before the world knew of her, she had returned home from Italy
unexpectedly. "Molly, here's Nora, from Tuscany!" her delighted father had
cried: who at that time had a nebulous idea that Tuscany was somewhere in
Ireland because it had a Celtic ring to it. Being filled with love of
Italy, its tongue, its history, its physical beauty, she naively
translated "Nora from Tuscany" into Italian, and declared that when she
went upon the stage she would be known by that name. There had been some
smiling over the pseudonym; but Nora was Irish enough to cling to it. By
and by the great music-loving public ceased to concern itself about her