s to play with--this morning's, for
instance, of being anyone she liked. She had played her game, had kept
it up loyally with herself all day--what was the good?

"Now, one thing I should like to really know:
How near I ever might approach all those
I only fancied being, this long day:
Approach, I mean, so as to touch them, so
As to . . . in some way . . . move them--if you please,
Do good or evil to them some slight way.
For instance, if I wind
Silk to-morrow, my silk may bind
And border Ottima's cloak's hem . . ."

Sitting on her bed, undressed, the solitary child thus broods. No nearer
than that can she get--her silk might border Ottima's cloak's hem. . . .
But she cannot endure this dejection: back to her centre of gaiety,
trust, and courage Pippa must somehow swing--and how shall she achieve
it? There floats into her memory the hymn which she had murmured in the
morning--

"All service ranks the same with God."

But even this can help her only a little--

"True in some sense or other, I suppose . . ."

She lies down; she can pray no more than that; the hymn no doubt is
right, "some way or other," and with its message thus almost mocking in
her ears, she falls asleep--the lonely little girl who has saved four
souls to-day, and does not know, will never know; but will be again,
to-morrow perhaps, when that sad talk on the church steps is faded from
her memory, the gay, brave, trustful spirit who, by merely being that,
had sung her Four Happiest Ones up toward "God in his heaven."

FOOTNOTES:

[24:1] Asolo, in the Trevisan, is a very picturesque mediaeval fortified
town, the ancient Acelum. It lies at the foot of a hill which is
surrounded by the ruins of an old castle; before it stretches the great
plain of the rivers Brenta and Piave, where Treviso, Vicenza, and Padua
may be clearly recognised. The Alps encircle it, and in the distance
rise the Euganean Hills. Venice can be discerned on the extreme eastern
horizon, which ends in the blue line of the Adriatic. The village of
Asolo is surrounded by a wall with mediaeval turrets.--BERDOE, _Browning
Cyclopaedia_, p. 50.

[26:1] Another line that I should like to omit, for the following words,
wholly in character, say all that the ugly ones have boomed at us so
incredibly. But here the rhyme-scheme provides a sort of unpardonable
excuse.

[49:1] Dr. Berdoe and Mrs. Orr.

[52:1] All the talk between