s together, has only widened
the gulf between my husband and his brother. The fault is not on our
side. Nay, I was rejoiced when, a few hours after the worst was over, a
letter from Zeno informed me that he and his daughter would come to
see us the same evening. But the letter itself"--and her voice began
to quiver with indignation--"compelled us to beg him not to come. It is
scarcely credible--and I should do better not to pour fresh oil on my
wrath--but he bade us 'rejoice'; three, four, five times he repeated the
cruel words. And he wrote in a pompous strain of the bliss and rapture
which awaited our lost child--and this to a mother whose heart had been
utterly broken but a few hours before by a fearful stroke of Fate! He
would meet the bereaved, grieving, lonely mourner with a smile on
his lips! Rejoice! This climax of cruelty or aberration has parted us
forever. Why, our black gardener, whose god is a tree-stump that bears
only the faintest likeness to humanity, melted into tears at the news;
and Zeno, our brother, the uncle of that broken dower, could be glad and
bid us rejoice! My husband thinks that hatred and the long-standing
feud prompted his pen. For my part, I believe it was only this Christian
frenzy which made him suggest that I should sink lower than the brutes,
who defend their young with their lives. Seleukus has long since
forgiven him for his conduct in withdrawing his share of the capital
from the business when he became a Christian, to squander it on the
baser sort; but this 'Rejoice' neither he nor I can forgive, though
things which pierce me to the heart often slide off him like water off
grease."

Her black hair had come down as she delivered this vehement speech, and,
when she ceased, her flushed cheeks and the fiery glow of her eyes gave
the majestic woman in her dark robes an aspect which terrified Melissa.

She, too, thought this "Rejoice," under such circumstances, unseemly and
insulting; but she kept her opinion to herself, partly out of modesty
and partly because she did not wish to encourage the estrangement
between this unhappy lady and the niece whose mere presence would have
been so great a comfort to her.

When Johanna returned to lead her to a bedroom, she gave a sigh of
relief; but the lady expressed a wish to keep Melissa near her, and in
a low voice desired the waiting-woman to prepare a bed for her in
the adjoining room, by the side of Korinna's, which was never to be
disturb