d color could make it. Keats and Shelley
lined the shelves; Rossetti's wan maidens gazed unearthly from the
over-mantel. The door was opened for him by Herminia in person;
for she kept no servant,--that was one of her principles. She was
dressed from head to foot in a simple white gown, as pure and sweet
as the soul it covered. A white rose nestled in her glossy hair;
three sprays of white lily decked a vase on the mantel-piece. Some
dim survival of ancestral ideas made Herminia Barton so array
herself in the white garb of affiance for her bridal evening. Her
cheek was aglow with virginal shrinking as she opened the door, and
welcomed Alan in. But she held out her hand just as frankly as
ever to the man of her free choice as he advanced to greet her.
Alan caught her in his arms and kissed her forehead tenderly. And
thus was Herminia Barton's espousal consummated.

VII.

The next six months were the happiest time of her life, for
Herminia. All day long she worked hard with her classes; and often
in the evenings Alan Merrick dropped in for sweet converse and
companionship. Too free from any taint of sin or shame herself
ever to suspect that others could misinterpret her actions,
Herminia was hardly aware how the gossip of Bower Lane made free in
time with the name of the young lady who had taken a cottage in the
row, and whose relations with the tall gentleman that called so
much in the evenings were beginning to attract the attention of the
neighborhood. The poor slaves of washer-women and working men's
wives all around, with whom contented slavery to a drunken, husband
was the only "respectable" condition,--couldn't understand for the
life of them how the pretty young lady could make her name so
cheap; "and her that pretends to be so charitable and that, and
goes about in the parish like a district visitor!" Though to be
sure it had already struck the minds of Bower Lane that Herminia
never went "to church nor chapel;" and when people cut themselves
adrift from church and chapel, why, what sort of morality can you
reasonably expect of them? Nevertheless, Herminia's manners were
so sweet and engaging, to rich and poor alike, that Bower Lane
seriously regretted what it took to be her lapse from grace. Poor
purblind Bower Lane! A life-time would have failed it to discern
for itself how infinitely higher than its slavish "respectability"
was Herminia's freedom. In which respect, indeed, Bower Lane