est had often struck me
also. One day, as we were talking about my children, Lulu had said that
she believed herself destitute of the maternal instinct; for although
she liked to see the children, of course, yet she did not miss them
when away from her. And after the death of young Lewis, which happened
while they were at Cuba, and which distressed my Johnnie so much that he
could not for a long time bear either books or play, for want of his
beloved playmate, his mother, apparently, did not lament him at all.

"I never liked to have him with me," she said to me,--"partly, I
suppose, because he reminded me of Montalli, and of a period of great
suffering in my life. I should be glad never to think of him again. But
William seemed to love and pity him always. Gave him his name, and
always treated him like an only and elder son. And William is fond of
the little girls, too. I don't mean that I am not fond of them, but not
as he is. He will go and spend a week at a time playing and driving with
them."

Indeed, she very often reminded me of Undine in her soulless days.

As she scarcely went into society, during the absence of Mr. Lewis, Lulu
had time for all this multifarious culture that I have been describing,
and she was gradually coming also to reason and reflect on what she read
and heard, though her appetite for knowledge continued with the same
keenness. Her artistic eye, which naturally grouped and arranged with
taste whatever was about her, stood her in good stead of experience; and
with a very little instruction, she was able to do wonders in both a
plastic and pictorial way.

One day she showed me a fine drawing of the Faun of Praxiteles, with
some verses written beneath. The lines seemed to me full of vigor and
harmony. They implied and breathed, too, such an intimacy with classical
thought, that I was astonished when, in answer to my inquiry, she told
me she wrote them herself.

"How delighted Mr. Lewis will be with this!" I exclaimed, looking at the
beautifully finished drawing; "to think how you have improved, Lulu!"

"You think so?" she answered, with glistening eyes. "I, too, feel that I
have, and am so happy!"

"I am sure Mr. Lewis will be so, too," I continued, persistently.

She answered in a sharp tone, dropping her eyes, and, as it were, all
the joy out of them,--

"Surely, I have told you often enough that Mr. Lewis hates literary
women! I am not goose enough to expect him to sympathize with