y years ago? "Emily," he said, "shall have a good
education, however we stint ourselves; then, when she grows up, she'll
always be able to keep herself from want, and our poverty won't matter
to her." And in that, at all events, he was right, and it's come about
as he said. No, Emily, we're not going to be a burden to you, so don't
fear it.'

'Mother, will you let me be by myself a little? I will come down to you
presently.'

'Aren't you well, my dear?' the mother asked, with a mixture of offended
reserve and anxiety occasioned by the girl's voice and aspect.

'I have a headache. I will rest till tea-time.'

Mrs. Hood had for a long time been unused to tend Emily with motherly
offices; like her husband, she was not seldom impressed with awe of this
nature so apart from her own. That feeling possessed her now; before
Emily's last words she moved away in silence and closed the door behind
her gently.

The irony of fate, coming out so bitterly in all that her mother had
said, was like a cold hand on Emily's heart. She sat again in the chair
from which she had risen, and let her head lie back. Her vitality was at
a low ebb; the movement of indignation against the cruelty which was
wrecking her life had passed and left behind it a weary indifference.
Happily she need not think yet. There were still some hours of respite
before her; there was the night to give her strength. The daylight was a
burden; it must be borne with what patience she could summon. But she
longed for the time of sacred silence.

To a spirit capable of high exaltations, the hour of lassitude is a
foretaste of the impotence of death. To see a purpose in the cold light
of intellectual conviction, and to lack the inspiring fervour which can
glorify a struggle with the obstacles nature will interpose, is to
realise intensely the rugged baldness of life stripped of illusion, life
as we shall see it when the end approaches and the only voice that
convinces tell us that all is vanity. It is the mood known by the artist
when, viewing the work complete within his mind, his heart lacks its joy
and his hand is cold to execute. Self-consciousness makes of life itself
a work of art. There are the blessed moments when ardour rises in
pursuit of the ideal, when it is supreme bliss to strive and overcome;
and there are the times of aching languor, when the conception is still
clear in every line, but the soul asks wearily--To what end? In Emily it
was reaction aft