st have been unspeakably
difficult for her; her high forehead became covered with perspiration,
her mouth was distorted by pain, and whenever she had finished a few
lines, she closed her eyes or drank greedily from the water-pitcher that
stood beside her.

The large room was perfectly still, but the peace that surrounded her
was often disturbed by strange noises and tones, that rose from the
dining-hall directly under her chamber. The clinking of glasses, shrill
tittering, loud, deep laughter, single bars of a dissolute love-song,
cheers, and then the sharp rattle of a shattered wine glass reached her
in mingled sounds. She did not wish to hear it, but could not escape
and clenched her white teeth indignantly. Yet meantime the pen did not
wholly stop.

She wrote in broken, or long, disconnected sentences, almost
incoherently involved. Sometimes there were gaps, sometimes the same
word was twice or thrice repeated. The whole resembled a letter written
by a lunatic, yet every line, every stroke of the pen, expressed the
same desire uttered with passionate longing: "Take me away from here!
Take me away from this woman and this house!"

The epistle was addressed to her father. She implored him to rescue
her from this place, come or send for her. "Her uncle, Matanesse Van
Wibisma," she said, "seemed to be a sluggish messenger; he had probably
enjoyed the evenings at her aunt's, which filled her, Henrica, with
loathing. She would go out into the world after her sister, if her
father compelled her to stay here." Then she began a description of her
aunt and her life. The picture of the days and nights she had now spent
for weeks with the old lady, presented in vivid characters a mixture of
great and petty troubles, external and mental humiliations.

Only too often the same drinking and carousing had gone on below as
to-day-Henrica had always been compelled to join her aunt's guests,
elderly dissolute men of French or Italian origin and easy morals. While
describing these conventicles, the blood crimsoned her flushed cheeks
still more deeply, and the long strokes of the pen grew heavier and
heavier. What the abbe related and her aunt laughed at, what the Italian
screamed and Monseigneur smilingly condemned with a slight shake of
the head, was so shamelessly bold that she would have been defiled by
repeating the words. Was she a respectable girl or not? She would rather
hunger and thirst, than be present at such a banquet aga