veyed it. The broad daylight made
everything in the house seem poor and shabby. When she went
down-stairs, her heart sank within her as she entered the kitchen to
help her mother, and when she sat with the family at the breakfast-table,
she had no faith left in her dreams of the rosy midnight. This
alternation of feeling bred in her, in the course of a few days, a sort
of fever, which lent a singular beauty to her face, and a petulant tang
to her speech. She rose one morning, after a sleepless night, in a
state of anger and excitement in which she had little difficulty in
charging upon Farnham all responsibility for her trouble of mind.

"I won't stand it any longer," she said aloud in her chamber. "I shall
go to him this day and have it out. I shall ask him what he means by
treating me so."

She sat down by her bureau and began to crimp her hair with grim
resolution. Her mother came and knocked at her door. "I'm not coming to
breakfast, I've got a headache," she said, and added to herself, "I
sha'n't go down and get the smell of bacon on me this morning."

She continued her work of personal adornment for two hours, going
several times over her whole modest arsenal of finery before she was
ready for the fray. She then went down in her street costume, and made
a hasty meal of bread and butter, standing by the pantry. Her mother
came in and found her there.

"Why, Mattie, how's your head?"

"I'm going to take a walk and see what that will do."

As she walked rapidly out of Dean Street, the great clock of the
cathedral was striking the hour of nine.

"Goodness!" she exclaimed, "that's too early to call on a gentleman.
What shall I do?"

She concluded to spend the time of waiting in the library, and walked
rapidly in that direction, the fresh air flushing her cheeks, and
blowing the frizzed hair prettily about her temples. She went straight
to the reference rooms, and sat down to read a magazine. The girl who
had prompted her to apply for a place was there on duty. She gave a
little cry of delight when she saw Maud, and said:

"I was just crazy to see you. I have got a great secret for you. I'm
engaged!"

The girls kissed each other with giggles and little screams, and the
young woman told who _he_ was--in the lightning-rod business in
Kalamazoo, and doing very well; they were to be married almost
immediately.

"You never saw such a fellow, he just won't wait;" and consequently her
place in the library would