remain
outside, and there await Cleotos's return. And as she took into her
hands a little parchment ode which lay upon her table, and nervously
endeavored to interest herself in it, she delightedly pictured the
sudden transport of those within the next room, and the beaming joy with
which, hand in hand, they would finally emerge to thank her for their
newly gained happiness.

In the mean time, Leta, having delivered her message, and received her
rebuke for the interruption, had retired to the other room, and there,
as usual, resumed her daily task of embroidery. Bending low over the
intricate stitches and counting their spaces, her features, at a casual
glance, still bore their impress of meek and unconscious humility, so
far did her accustomed self-control seem to accompany her even when
alone. But a more attentive scrutiny would have detected, half hidden
beneath the fringed eyelids, a sparkle of gratified triumph, and, in the
slightly bent corners of the mouth, a shade of haughty disdain; and
little by little, as the moments progressed, these indications of an
inner, irrepressible nature gained in intensity, and, as though her
fingers were stayed by a tumult of thought, her work slowly began to
slip from her grasp.

At length, lifting her head, and, perhaps, for the first time realizing
that she was alone and might indulge her impulses without restraint, she
abruptly threw from her the folds of the embroidery, and stood erect.
Why should she longer trifle with that weak affair of velvet and dyes?
Who was the poor, inanimate, and tearful statue in the next room, to
order her to complete those tasks? What to herself were the past deeds
of the Vanni, that they should be perpetuated in ill-fashioned tapestry,
to be hung around a gilded banquet hall? By the gods! she would from
that day make a new history in the family life; and it should be
recorded, not with silken threads upon embroidered velvet, but should be
engraved deeply and ineffaceably upon human hearts!

Standing motionless in the centre of the room, with one foot upon the
half-completed tapestry, she now for the first time, and in a flash of
inspiration, gave shape and comeliness to her previously confusedly
arranged ideas. Until the present moment she had had but little thought
of accomplishing anything beyond skilfully availing herself of her
natural attractions so as to climb from her menial position into
something a little better and higher. If, in the