d not cover.

How often the young couple sat hand in hand, and he spoke, and she
dropped a word now and then, always in the same tone, like a clock
striking one, two, three! It was quite a relief when Sophie, a female
friend, came.

Sophie was not very pretty; she was slightly awry, Kala said; but this
was not perceptible except to her female friends. Kala allowed that
she was clever. It never occurred to her that her talents might make
her dangerous. She came like fresh air into a close, confined puppet
show; and fresh air is always pleasant. After a time the young couple
and the mother-in-law went to breathe the soft air of Italy. Their
wishes were fulfilled.

* * * * *

"Thank Heaven, we are at home again!" exclaimed both the mother and
the daughter, when, the following year, they and Alfred returned to
Denmark.

"There is no pleasure in travelling," said the mamma; "on the
contrary, it is very fatiguing--excuse my saying so. I was excessively
tired, notwithstanding that I had my children with me. And travelling
is extremely expensive. What hosts of galleries you have to see! What
quantities of things to be rushing after! And you are so teased with
questions when you come home, as if it were possible to know
everything. And then to hear that you have just forgotten to see what
was most charming! I am sure I was quite tired of these everlasting
Madonnas; one was almost turned into a Madonna one's self."

"And the living was so bad," said Kala.

"Not a single spoonful of honest meat soup," rejoined the mamma. "They
dress the victuals so absurdly."

Kala was much fatigued after her journey. She continued very languid,
and did not seem to rally--that was the worst of it. Sophie came to
stay with them, and she was extremely useful.

The mother-in-law allowed that Sophie understood household affairs
well, and had many accomplishments, which she, with her fortune, had
no need to trouble herself about; and she confessed, also, that Sophie
was very estimable and kind. She could not help seeing this when Kala
was lying ill, without making the slightest exertion in any way.

If there be nothing but the case or framework, when it gives way it is
all over with the case. And the case had given way. Kala died.

"She was charming!" said her mother. "She was very different from all
these antiquities that are half mutilated. Kala was a perfect beauty!"

Alfred wept, and his mother-in-law w