wn to watch and count their revolutions; consequently, she
hastened upstairs and betook herself vigorously to the work of
embroidering a _parterre_ of flowers on the front breadth of an
infant's christening dress which her employer had promised should be
completed before the following Sabbath.

Stab the laggard seconds as she might with her busy needle, the day
was drearily long; and few genuine cuckoo-carols have been listened to
with such grateful rejoicing as greeted those metallic gutturals that
once in every sixty minutes issued from the throat of the gaudy
automaton caged in the gilt clock.

True, nine hours are intrinsically nine hours under all circumstances,
whether decapitation or coronation awaits their expiration; but to the
doomed victim or the heir-apparent they appear relatively shorter or
longer. At last Salome saw that the shadows on the grass were
lengthening. Her head ached, her eyes burned from steady application
to her trying work, and laying aside the cambric, she leaned against
the window-facing and looked out over the lawn, where Time seemed to
have fallen asleep in the mild autumn sunshine.

How sweet and welcome was the distance-muffled sound of tinkling
cow-bells, and the low bleating of homeward-strolling flocks, wending
their way across the hills through which the road crawled like a dusty
gray serpent.

A noisy club of black-birds that had been holding an indignation
meeting in the top of a walnut tree near the gate, adjourned to the
sycamore grove that overshadowed the barn in the rear of the house;
and Stanley's pigeons, which had been cooing and strutting in the
avenue, went to roost in the pretty painted pagoda Dr. Grey had
erected for their comfort. Finally, the low-swung, heavy carriage,
with its stout dappled horses, gladdened Salome's strained eyes; and,
soon after, she heard the thump of Miss Jane's crutches and her
cheerful voice, asking,--

"Where are the children? Tell them I have come home. Bless me, the
house is as dark as a dungeon! Rachel, have we neither lamps nor
candles?"

The orphan stole down the steps, climbed upon the table in the parlor,
and, seizing the letter, hurried into the dining-room, where, quite
exhausted by the fatigue of the day, the old lady lay on the sofa.

She held out her hand and drew the girl's face within reach of her
lips, saying,--

"My child, I am afraid you have had rather a lonely day."

"Decidedly the loneliest and longest I ever