nners. Pictures of shadowy studios and calm lakes, unfrequented
coverts and sleepy wayside inns, covered my wall. The tints of
tapestry, panel, and furniture were subdued, and the sunshine which
mellowed a stained window was softened by an ingenious arrangement of
shades and refractors. Art opposed her quaintest contrivances against
the intense and violent moods of Nature, and my retirement was secure
from the inroads of all except my careful guardians.

"But I was still unhappy, and the prey of vivid fancies. This privacy
suggested the great world without, where men were wrestling with
dangers. I imagined ships upon stormy seas, and whirlwinds around
mountain-homes; the chaos of cities, the rout of armies, dim arctic
solitudes, where the icebergs tumbled apart and the frozen seas split
asunder. They had banished painful occurrences, but the sensitive
organism could not be destroyed, and I bore up until almost insane,
struggling to be cheerful when stunned and dazzled. At last, when my
mother stole into my room one day--it was October, I think, for I
could hear the tiniest leaves dropping to the grass far below--I laid
my head wearily in her lap and covered my ears with my hands. My eyes
were filled with tears.

"'My dear mother, I cannot bear this life. I suffer as of old, though
there be not a mote across the sun nor a breath in the air. If my mind
could be led from these consciousnesses, I might be calm.'

"'Luke,' said my mother, 'you need a companion.'

"The thought was a new one, and so thrilled me.

"'No, mother,' I replied; 'strong, healthy beings could not exist thus
cloistered.'

"'For less than money,' she responded, 'they have done more.'

"'We should not agree,' I said; 'I would be peevish and he would
despise me.'

"'Your companion must be a woman, my son.'

"A succession of short chills passed through every nerve, and a
moment's faintness possessed me.

"'It must not be,' I pleaded; 'a restless, chatting, plotting woman
would be worse than all.'

"My mother marked my rising agitation and glided away.

"'Whatever can relieve you, dear Luke,' she said, 'your father shall
obtain.'

"I now fancied that they believed me mad, and that a keeper was to be
introduced to me, under the guise of a companion. I formed many mental
portraits of this fierce person, and they kept me awake through the
long watches. I even meditated escape, and unclosed my casement with
that design, but the sunlight, the bi