t you've said."

"That's a good child," she said, evidently much relieved, and thinking
that the affair was very near its end. I opened the door, and she added:
"Now go up-stairs, and rest yourself, for you look as if you had a
headache, and don't think of anything that's disagreeable." That was a
good prescription, but I did not take it.

Of course, I did not go near the library; that was understood. After
dinner, the servant brought in Mr. Langenau's tray untouched, and
Charlotte Benson started up, and ran in to see what was the matter.
Sophie went too, looking a little troubled. I think they were both
snubbed: for ten minutes after, when I met Charlotte in the hall, she
had an unusual flush upon her cheek, and Sophie I found standing at one
of the parlor-windows, biting her lip, and tapping impatiently upon the
carpet. Evidently the affair was not as near its placid end as she had
hoped. She started a little when she saw me, and tried to look
unruffled.

"How sultry it is this afternoon!" she said. "Are you going up to your
room to take a rest? stop in my room on your way, I want to show you
those embroideries that I was telling Charlotte Benson of last night."

"I did not hear you, and I do not know anything about them," I said,
feeling not at all affectionate.

"No? Oh, I forgot: it was while you and Henrietta were sitting in the
library, and Charlotte and I were walking up and down the piazza while
it rained. Why, they are some heavenly sets that I got this spring from
Paris--Marshall picked them up one day at the _Bon Marche_--and verily
they are _bon marche_. I never saw anything so cheap, and I was telling
Charlotte that some of you might just as well have part of them, for I
never could use the half. Come up and look them over."

Now I loved "heavenly sets" as well as most women, but dress was not the
bait for me at that moment. So I said my head ached and I could not look
at them then, if she'd excuse me; and I went silently away to my room,
not caring at all if she were pleased or not. I disliked and distrusted
her more and more every moment, and she seemed to me so mean: for I knew
all her worry came from the apprehension of what she might have to fear
from Richard, not the thought of the suffering that he or that any one
else endured.

It was a long afternoon, but it reached its end, after the manner of
all afternoons on record, even those of Marianna. When I came
down-stairs they were all at tea a