ssed a change in the brilliant weather that had long prevailed. The
rain began to fall and the day was cold and dreary. Mr. Wentworth and
his daughters put on overshoes and went to church, and Felix Young,
without overshoes, went also, holding an umbrella over Gertrude. It is
to be feared that, in the whole observance, this was the privilege he
most highly valued. The Baroness remained at home; she was in neither a
cheerful nor a devotional mood. She had, however, never been, during her
residence in the United States, what is called a regular attendant at
divine service; and on this particular Sunday morning of which I began
with speaking she stood at the window of her little drawing-room,
watching the long arm of a rose-tree that was attached to her piazza,
but a portion of which had disengaged itself, sway to and fro, shake and
gesticulate, against the dusky drizzle of the sky. Every now and then,
in a gust of wind, the rose-tree scattered a shower of water-drops
against the window-pane; it appeared to have a kind of human movement--a
menacing, warning intention. The room was very cold; Madame Munster put
on a shawl and walked about. Then she determined to have some fire; and
summoning her ancient negress, the contrast of whose polished ebony and
whose crimson turban had been at first a source of satisfaction to her,
she made arrangements for the production of a crackling flame. This old
woman's name was Azarina. The Baroness had begun by thinking that there
would be a savory wildness in her talk, and, for amusement, she
had encouraged her to chatter. But Azarina was dry and prim; her
conversation was anything but African; she reminded Eugenia of the
tiresome old ladies she met in society. She knew, however, how to make
a fire; so that after she had laid the logs, Eugenia, who was terribly
bored, found a quarter of an hour's entertainment in sitting and
watching them blaze and sputter. She had thought it very likely
Robert Acton would come and see her; she had not met him since that
infelicitous evening. But the morning waned without his coming; several
times she thought she heard his step on the piazza; but it was only a
window-shutter shaking in a rain-gust. The Baroness, since the beginning
of that episode in her career of which a slight sketch has been
attempted in these pages, had had many moments of irritation. But to-day
her irritation had a peculiar keenness; it appeared to feed upon
itself. It urged her to do s