lament is the
years I spent in working myself up to an undertaking that I was never
fit for. I won't continue that waste, and I won't keep up the delusion
that because I was very unhappy I was useful, and that it was doing good
to be miserable. I like pleasure and I like dress; I like pretty things.
There is no harm in them. Why should n't I have them?"

"There is harm in them for you,"--her mother began.

"Because I have tried to make my life a horror? There is no other
reason, and that is no reason. When we go into Boston this winter I
shall go to the theatre. I shall go to the opera, and I hope there
will be a ballet. And next summer, I am going to Europe; I am going to
Italy." She whirled away toward the door as if she were setting out.

"I should think you had taken leave of your conscience!" cried her
mother.

"I hope I have, mother. I am going to consult my reason after this."

"Your reason!"

"Well, then, my inclination. I have had enough of conscience,--of my
own, and of yours, too. That is what I told him, and that is what
I mean. There is such a thing as having too much conscience, and of
getting stupefied by it, so that you can't really see what's right. But
I don't care. I believe I should like to do wrong for a while, and I
will do wrong if it's doing right to marry him."

She had her hand on the door-knob, and now she opened the door, and
closed it after her with something very like a bang.

She naturally could not keep within doors in this explosive state, and
she went downstairs, and out upon the piazza. Mr. Maynard was there,
smoking, with his boots on top of the veranda-rail, and his person
thrown back in his chair at the angle requisite to accomplish this
elevation of the feet. He took them down, as he saw her approach, and
rose, with the respect in which he never failed for women, and threw his
cigar away.

"Mr. Maynard," she asked abruptly, "do you know where Mr. Libby is?"

"No, I don't, doctor, I'm sorry to say. If I did, I would send and
borrow some more cigars of him. I think that the brand our landlord
keeps must have been invented by Mr. Track, the great anti-tobacco
reformer."

"Is he coming back? Is n't he coming back?" she demanded breathlessly.

"Why, yes, I reckon he must be coming back. Libby generally sees his
friends through. And he'll have some curiosity to know how Mrs. Maynard
and I have come out of it all." He looked at her with something latent
in his eye; but what