t up awkwardly.

Dr. Sharpe seldom noticed a woman's dress; he could not have told now
whether his wife's shawl was sky-blue or pea-green; he knew nothing
about the ink-spots; he had never heard of the unfortunate blue bonnet,
or the mysteries of short and long skirts. He might have gone to walk
with her a dozen times and thought her very pretty and "proper" in her
appearance. Now, without the vaguest idea what was the trouble, he
understood that something was wrong. A woman would have said, Mrs.
Sharpe looks dowdy and old-fashioned; he only considered that Miss
Dallas had a pleasant air, like a soft brown picture with crimson lights
let in, and that it was an air which his wife lacked. So, when Rocko
dragged heavily and more heavily at his mother's skirts, and the Doctor
and Pauline wandered off to climb the cliffs, Harrie did not seek to
follow or to call them back. She sat down with Rocko on the beach,
wrapped herself with a savage hug in the ugly shawl, and wondered with a
bitterness with which only women can wonder over such trifles, why God
should send Pauline all the pretty beach-dresses and deny them to
her,--for Harrie, like many another "dowdy" woman whom you see upon the
street, my dear madam, was a woman of fine, keen tastes, and would have
appreciated the soft browns no less than yourself. It seemed to her the
very sting of poverty, just then, that one must wear purple dresses and
blue bonnets.

At the tea-table the Doctor fell to reconstructing the country, and Miss
Dallas, who was quite a politician in Miss Dallas's way, observed that
the horizon looked brighter since Tennessee's admittance, and that she
hoped that the clouds, &c.,--and what _did_ he think of Brownlow? &c.,
&c.

"Tennessee!" exclaimed Harrie; "why, how long has Tennessee been in? I
didn't know anything about it."

Miss Dallas smiled kindly. Dr. Sharpe bit his lip, and his face flushed.

"Harrie, you really _ought_ to read the papers," he said, with some
impatience; "it's no wonder you don't know anything."

"How should I know anything, tied to the children all day?" Harrie spoke
quickly, for the hot tears sprang. "Why didn't you tell me something
about Tennessee? You never talk politics with _me_."

This began to be awkward; Miss Dallas, who never interfered--on
principle--between husband and wife, gracefully took up the baby, and
gracefully swung her dainty Geneva watch for the child's amusement,
smiling brilliantly. She could no