oud obscuring
the New Day, and the Violets that had faded behind a Curtain,
etc.; but chiefly of a Little Talk with Mamma, which produced
Moral Results, after all.

The foolish nightmares receded; the sad faces of a dream dwindled again
into air; and she waked suddenly in the sunshine to find herself quite
well. This she knew with the first opening of her eyes. The familiar
objects in the room, the face of the morning, wore the unmistakable
_well_ look. Wellness there seemed within, too, refreshment in body,
mind, and spirit. Life called to the young and the strong, and the
sunlight, streaming royally through the shuttered windows, was the
ringing reveille of a new day....

But Cally Heth, having waked to life, lay on in bed. She heard the
summons, was strong to answer it; but was held back as by a high
surrounding wall. She was like a tied bird, unfolding wings with the
heart to soar, and continually brought down by the shortness of
her tether.

She had waked to overspreading gloom in the House of Heth; but this she
could have fronted cheerfully to-day, fortified to charm it away, for
herself and others. If events of late had been sweeping her along too
fast, one emotion crowded unsteadyingly upon another, nature, stepping
in, had put the gentle punctuation where it was needed. Hers was the
resilience of youth. And the second cataclysm in the House, even at its
worst (which was what mamma had made it), was hardly comparable to the
first. There was no spiritual abasement this time, no sense of calamity
and worlds at end. Rather, indeed, the contrary: and it was here that
was found the seriousness of it all, in that now the smash-up was her
own deliberate doing. Cally had hardly needed her mother's savage
outbreak to make her feel how definite a parting was here with the
ideals and aspirations of a lifetime. She saw that one whole phase of
her girlhood had passed away forever. Or, it might be, this that she had
said good-bye to was the dim figure of her girlhood itself....

In these thoughts there was sadness, naturally. Hugo's going had been
with the noises of breakage, the reverberations of the day of judgment.
But Cally had had four days to put her house in order; and she felt that
she would have waked almost happy to-day, but for this stranger cloud
that still hung so dark upon the horizon....

It was such a day as October in this climate brings week on week,
gloriously golden. Cally breakfaste