ught maybe I'd
just come down and see about you; and gran'ma said you wanted to make a
picture of me. You don't want to make a picture to-night, do you?
'cause I'm awful sleepy. You see, Wob had to come on the seven o'clock
twain, and that gits in at 'leven; and it took us till midnight to git
here, and Wob he's got to go ever so fur yet. What made 'em build such
a big town?" Here Periwinkle yawned and seemed about to fall off the
chair. In a few minutes she was lying fast asleep on Henrietta's
pillow.

But Henrietta slept not. It was a night of stormy trial. By turns one
mood and then another dominated. At times she resolved to be a lady,
admired and courted in the luxury of the city. As for possible
consequences, she had never been in the habit of counting the cost of
her actions carefully. There is a delicious excitement to a nature like
hers in defying consequences.

But then a sight of Periwinkle's sleeping innocence sent back the tide
with a rush. How much better were the simple old home ways and the love
of this little heart, and the faithful devotion of that most kindly Rob
Riley! She remembered her walks with him, her teasing him, his
interference against Miss Tucker, and the deliverance wrought by the
little creature lying there. She would go back to her old self, how
painful soever it might be.

But she couldn't stay in the city and turn away Harrison Lowder; and to
go home was to confess that she had failed in her art. And how could
she humble herself to seem to wish to regain Rob Riley's love? And
then, what kind of an outlook did the life of a granite-cutter's wife
afford her? Here she looked at herself in the glass. All her pride
rebelled against going home. But all her pride sank down when she
stooped to kiss the cheek of the sleeping child.

In this alternation of feeling she passed the night. When breakfast
time came she took Periwinkle down, making such explanations as she
could with much embarrassment.

"You're sick, Henrietta," said Cousin John. "You don't eat anything.
You've been working too steadily."

After breakfast the family doctor called, and said that Henrietta was
suffering from too close application to her art, and from steam heat in
the alcoves. She must have rest.

The poor, tired, perplexed girl, badgered with conflicting emotions,
but resolved at last to escape from temptations that she could not
resist effectually, received this verdict eagerly. She would go home;
and the d