ealous, just for fun.

As memories came crowding back, the woman buried her face in the pillow,
striving with all her might to shut them out. What was the use of making
herself wretched? Victoria ought to have come long, long ago, or not at
all.

But the blue eyes would look at her, even when her own were shut; and
always there was the faint light in the mirror, which seemed to come
through the door.

At last Saidee could not longer lie still. She had to get up and open
the door, to see what her sister was really doing. Very softly she
turned the handle, for she hoped that by this time Victoria was asleep;
but as she pulled the door noiselessly towards her, and peeped into the
next room, she saw that one of the lamps was burning. Victoria had not
yet gone to bed. She was kneeling beside it, saying her prayers, with
her back towards the door.

So absorbed was she in praying, and so little noise had Saidee made,
that the girl heard nothing. She remained motionless on her knees, not
knowing that Saidee was looking at her.

A sharp pain shot through the woman's heart. How many times had she
softly opened their bedroom door, coming home late after a dance, to
find her little sister praying, a small, childish form in a long white
nightgown, with quantities of curly red hair pouring over its shoulders!

Sometimes Victoria had gone to sleep on her knees, and Saidee had waked
her up with a kiss.

Just as she had looked then, so she looked now, except that the form in
the long, white nightgown was that of a young girl, not a child. But the
thick waves of falling hair made it seem childish.

"She is praying for me," Saidee thought; and dared not close the door
tightly, lest Victoria should hear. By and by it could be done, when the
light was out, and the girl dropped asleep.

Meanwhile, she tiptoed back to her bed, and sat on the edge of it, to
wait. At last the thread of light, fine as a red-gold hair, vanished
from the door; but as it disappeared a line of moonlight was drawn in
silver along the crack. Victoria must have left her windows wide open,
or there would not have been light enough to paint this gleaming streak.

Saidee sat on her bed for nearly half an hour, trying to concentrate her
thoughts on the present and future, yet unable to keep them from flying
back to the past, the long-ago past, which lately had seemed unreal, as
if she had dreamed it; the past when she and Victoria had been all the
world to each