"Mrs. Harrington was lying on her sofa when I entered. She looked up and smiled cheerfully, but I could see that she had been crying.

"'I sent for you, dear, because James wanted to go out for a while,' she said. 'Some way I don't just like being left alone—you don't mind sitting with me?'

"'You know I like it, Mrs. Harrington.'

"'You're a dear, good girl, Mabel! I never can be grateful enough to you for all your kindness and patience with me.'

"I kissed her forehead but did not answer.

"'Toward evening we'll go out to drive,' she said, 'and take that little Lucy with us.'

"'Yes; Mr. Harrington gave her your invitation. Shall I go on with our book now?'

"'Oh yes, do; I am wonderfully interested in it.'

"I had left the novel in the salon, and went back to get it. As I opened the door, James was pacing up and down the room, and the face he turned toward me was pale and troubled.

"'I came for my book,' I said, and began searching for it among the volumes on the table.

"'Can I help you?'

"'Thanks—no—here it is.'

"How different it all was from the days—so far off and faded they seemed now—when we had conversed like friends, with neither restraints or concealment between us!

"Now he was reserved—distant, and I could feel that my manner was absolutely cold and haughty. I had reached the door when he came hurriedly toward me, saying—

"'Miss Crawford!'

"I stopped.

"'What is it, Mr. Harrington?'

"I knew my voice sounded icy—he looked at me, and the odd, troubled look came over his face again.

"'I only wished to ask if you were going to my mother,' he said in a hesitating, embarrassed way, very unusual with him.

"It was not true; he had meant to speak of something entirely different. I have wondered since if my frigid manner and lack of sympathy prevented him. Yet what could he have said—there was no possibility of his bringing even the slightest allusion to his trouble before me.

"'Certainly I am,' I said.

"'I have to go out,' he continued; 'I will be back by the time you wish to drive.'

"'Very well; but I assure you as far as I am concerned, I have no fear that the coachman cannot manage the horses without difficulty.'

"He colored slightly—offended, I suppose, by my tone and my indifference.

"'My mother desired me to accompany her,' he said, coldly, 'so I shall be obliged to force myself upon your society.'

"'Are you not too modest in your estimate of yourself?' I asked with a laugh, that even to my own ears, sounded so harsh and mocking, that I scarcely recognized it as my own.

"He gave me another of those quick, strange glances. It was too late to attempt to soften my judgments or opinions now, by looks or words. While hating myself for the thoughts that tormented me, I could neither return to my old faith or believe in the evil that disturbed it.

"'I fear I hardly appreciate satire,' he said, gravely.

"'No!' returned I, laughingly. 'You must cultivate a taste for it—read the old English humorists.'"'Certainly Miss Crawford seems to have been studying the art lately with great diligence, if one may judge from the results.'

"'That is a somewhat doubtful compliment, still I must take it for granted that you meant it to be one,' said I. 'But I cannot wait to listen—Mrs. Harrington is wondering what I am about, I dare say.'

"'And we are not friends any longer? 'he asked with a sudden change of manner, extending his hand as he spoke.

"'The best of friends, certainly,' I answered, 'only I have not time just now to talk about the matter.'

"I pretended not to notice his offered hand, and ran away down the corridor. I glanced back as I reached his mother's door. He was still standing where I had left him—he was looking after me. All this seemed needless duplicity, and only made me feel more harshly toward him. I would not have touched his hand then for the world. Why did he wish to keep up the farce of trying to make me believe that my opinion was of consequence to him? Perhaps from that absorbing vanity which so many men are said to possess, which makes them unwilling to suppose that any woman in the world is absolutely indifferent to them.

"I went back to Mrs. Harrington, and sat reading to her for a long time. Then my maid came to help her dress—we had both forgotten how late it was. The carriage was already at the door.

"Lucy Eaton was ready when we sent for her, and in the salon. Mr. Harrington joined us, so we went out for our drive. It was almost sunset, one of those glorious days that it seems to me only Spain can show in their full perfection. Italy even falls short. There is a softness, a witchery, an absolute intoxication about them, which must be felt in order to be understood; but any one who has enjoyed them would say with me, that no words could be found to express their wonderful charm."A rather dull, silent drive, though Lucy Eaton talked a great deal; and James, who was sitting beside her, of course, made an effort to talk and to appear interested. But it was evident that it was an effort—so evident that I wondered how she could help seeing it.

"Mrs. Harrington was in one of her most quiet moods, and as for me, I leaned back in the carriage and kept my mouth resolutely shut. I am sure I must have looked both obstinate and disagreeable, but I could not help it—in fact, I am afraid that I did not much care.

"I was mortally tired; I could not tell why. Certainly a few hours of reading aloud could not have reduced me to a state of such extreme weariness, and I had made no other exertion; but body and mind I felt utterly prostrated, as if I should never be rested or strong again.

"I was glad enough when the drive was over. I must have shown in my face something of the lassitude, for even Lucy, who was the most thoughtless and unobservant of human beings said, as we got out of the carriage—

"'You look so pale, Miss Crawford; I am sure you cannot be well.'

"'Only dreadfully tired,' I said; 'I shall have a cup of tea and go straight to my room.'

"Mrs. Harrington was inclined to be anxious about me, but I succeeded in convincing her that there was no occasion.

"'I only want a long sleep; I was wakened very early this morning, and there is so much of the dormouse about me, that if I am cheated out of a single half hour of my usual allowance, I am fit for nothing all day.'

"I knew James was to stay with his mother; and as Lucy Eaton seemed inclined to spend the evening too, I drank a cup of tea and went away to my room.

"I undressed myself and lay down on my bed, too thoroughly worn out to sit up longer, but I could not sleep. I felt as if I would give the world to have fallen into a slumber so heavy that it could not have been disturbed even by a dream, till the new day came in.

"But not even a sensation of drowsiness would come. There I lay and watched the full moon soaring up the purple heavens—thinking—thinking, and yet so longing to be free from thought—and oh, so tired, so tired.

"Many a time I have passed a week that did not seem so long as that night! I had a horrible feeling that it would never come to an end. I felt as if time had ceased suddenly, and I had been flung into the pulseless hush of eternity, and was to be left alone there forever, with my dreary meditations for company and punishment."