going that she
cared about; the three ladies purring through the drowsy hours on topics
that she fancied she had exhausted years ago; and Irene, between whom
and her there had never been any real electric sympathy, and who was now
coldly indifferent to all matters. For hours she would sit with her
hands dropped nerveless in her lap, glancing over the wide sea out to
the farther horizon. What thoughts were in her mind, Sylvie wondered?
She could not even provoke her to the wordy combats of old. The flashes
of temper and imperiousness had alike died out. She was courteously
polite, and acknowledged all favors with a punctiliousness that built
the wall around her still more firmly. "If one could only rouse her,"
Dr. Maverick said; but that seemed just the thing no one _could_ do.

Yet she certainly was improving in health. Her step became more assured,
her eye less languid, and her complexion cleared up to the hopeful tints
of renewed bodily vigor. Her slender hands filled out a trifle; and
sometimes she would take a book, as if she needed an interest beside her
own sombre thoughts to while away the hours.

So Sylvie established her easel, and had recourse to painting. Oddly
enough she began to ask herself what it was all for? Filling her own
rooms, and bestowing gifts upon friends, was very well for a season; but
was there not a higher purpose in all art, or at least a wider purpose?
It surely did not tend to isolation. She thought of her winter in
Philadelphia,--of the friends she had made, of the desires that had been
awakened. She longed for some purpose, some sympathy and aim. The
enthusiasms of girlhood could no longer inspire her: there must be a
reality and definite end, or work lost its great charm. How was she to
get to this? Her aunt was coming to depend upon her in a peculiar way,
that at times startled Sylvie. She would say, with her quiet, tender
smile, "Will you do this or that, Sylvie? I believe I am growing
indolent: I never thought to so like being waited upon."

The secret in Miss Barry's soul was well kept. In how many lives there
comes a demand for heroism greater than that which led the martyrs of
old to the stake, or the brave women in the reign of terror to the
guillotine! Their inspiration to bravery was patent to all around: their
cause was a lofty one, and they were apostles of that high creed of
self-abnegation which leaves behind a memory in the hearts of all noble
men and women. But there ar